Best Wildlife Photography Settings for Beginners
The best shooting mode for wildlife photography is aperture priority. You may wonder, “If I want to prioritize a fast shutter speed, why not ...
shutter speed
What makes wildlife photography difficult? For starters, most animals you’ll encounter are moving subjects. Birds are almost always on the move, bugs will sway on a leaf in the wind, or a coyote could be on its morning prowl. This is why it’s so important to shoot with a fast <anchor>shutter speed</anchor> so that your images are not blurry due to motion blur.
Understanding Shutter Speed
Understanding Shutter Speed

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# Understanding Shutter Speed

By [Spencer Cox](https://photographylife.com/author/spencer) [1 Comment](https://photographylife.com/videos/shutter-speed#comments)

Last Updated On September 15, 2020

For today’s video, I’m revisiting one of the most critical camera settings out there: shutter speed. So much of photography builds off shutter speed (and exposure generally) that I wanted to publish this one before diving into deeper topics.

If you’d prefer to learn about shutter speed in an article, you’ll be happy to hear that Nasim recently updated our [shutter speed tutorial](https://photographylife.com/what-is-shutter-speed-in-photography) with a number of new details. I’ve also added today’s video to that post.

Otherwise, for our video audience, I hope you find this week’s tutorial interesting and useful!

If you enjoyed this video and want to see more like it, [you can subscribe here](https://www.youtube.com/c/SpencerCoxPhoto). We’re publishing one video per week, every Friday around 2 PM Eastern. Be sure to click the “bell” icon under each video if you want to be notified when we publish new content.

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Filed Under: [Photography Techniques](https://photographylife.com/category/photography-techniques)Tagged With: [Camera Shutter](https://photographylife.com/tag/camera-shutter), [Exposure](https://photographylife.com/tag/exposure), [Photography Basics](https://photographylife.com/tag/photography-basics), [Shutter Speed](https://photographylife.com/tag/shutter-speed), [Tips for Beginners](https://photographylife.com/tag/tips-for-beginners)

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#### About Spencer Cox

I'm Spencer Cox, a landscape photographer based in Colorado. I started writing for Photography Life a decade ago, and now I run the website in collaboration with Nasim. I've used nearly every digital camera system under the sun, but for my personal work, I love the slow-paced nature of large format film. You can see more at my [personal website](https://www.spencercoxphoto.com) and my not-exactly-active [Instagram page](https://www.instagram.com/spencercoxphoto/).

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![Gary Ray](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/51c1617421437574dd5aa8f8c8b5d2dd?s=64&d=mm&r=g)

Gary Ray

July 17, 2020 8:16 pm

I enjoyed the insights you shared in your presentation. However, having been a graphic arts and photography teacher for over 20 years, I would add one more variable to your list of four for the effects of different shutter speeds. That would be the direction a moving subject is traveling related to the lens axis. For example: someone riding a bicycle toward the camera would not necessarily require the same shutter speed to “freeze” motion of the same person/bicycle/speed riding perpendicular to the camera– panning the camera not necessarily being a factor that can be measured. And a bicycle traveling at a 45 degree oblique to the camera would be different than either of the two examples above, and so on… Obviously, a race car or a train would make a difference, as well.

Anyhow, that’s the way I taught my students on the subject.

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