One More from the Beach
The human eye and the camera may seem similar, but they see the world quite differently. For example, the “shutter speed” of the human eye is estimated to be approximately 1/50th of a second. These brief exposures are blended by our brain into a seamless “video” experience of the world around us.
One of the advantages of a camera is the ability to change shutter speed. I’ve taken images as long as four hours and as short as 1/8000th of a second.
Shutter speed is a creative choice. The decisive instant of catching a football requires a fast shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second or shorter. At the other extreme, a five-minute exposure can transform moving clouds into a pleasing ethereal blur above a static city skyline.
The Florida Coast
On my recent Florida coast trip, I played with shutter speed as a creative tool. Combining images taken at different shutter speeds in Photoshop can create pleasing images that the eye cannot see.
The Shot
This image is a composite of several photographs. The distant sky is a single image taken at a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second. The middle ground water and wave come from a single image taken at a much slower shutter speed of 0.4 second. This allowed for a slight blur that implied motion.
The foreground consists of six images taken at 0.6 second to enhance the blur of the receding surf. Parts of each image were blended in Photoshop to bring out the pleasing swirling shapes of receding surf.
Thanks for looking,
Chuck Derus