What is shutter speed?

The dictionary meaning of shutter speed is ‘the nominal time for which the shutter is open at a given setting’. It’s as simple as that.

However this can be manipulated to produce images such as these:

How does it work?

Shutter speed can be altered within the range of slow to fast. Photos taken at slow speeds tend to have the subject quite blurry and usually the camera must be on a tripod, sometimes even using a remote, to remove any camera shake that could effect the final photograph. Using a faster shutter speed allows you to stop a moving subject in place with a better clarity, this tends to be used in sport or performance photography, even in still photography to ignore the use of a tripod. Shutter speed also determines the amount of light allowed into the camera, fast shutter speed = dark product/slow shutter speed = light product.