Editing Shutter speed (section)

{{Short description|Length of time when the film or digital sensor inside a camera is exposed to light}}
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[[File:Splashhhhh.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|A spoon falling in water, taken at {{frac|2000}}&nbsp;s]]
[[File:Shutter speed waterfall.gif|frame|Shutter speed can have a dramatic impact on the appearance and quality of photographs, especially when moving objects are involved. For instance a slow shutter-speed often results in a blurred image as the slight shudder of the shutter itself, or the motion caused to the whole camera by the index pressing on the shutter-release button create vibrations that are faster than the shutter itself; this will cause the appearance of the objects in the view-finder and on the photographs having moved when in fact it is the camera that moved.]] <!-- Don't thumb this, mediawiki animation  scaling is broken and will make it ugly and bigger -->
[[File:Nikkormat shutterspeeddial top.jpg|thumb|upright|The shutter speed dial of a [[Nikkormat|Nikkormat EL]]]]
[[File:Truck with motion blur.jpg|thumb|Slow shutter speed combined with panning the camera can achieve a motion blur for moving objects.]]

In [[photography]], '''shutter speed''' or '''exposure time''' is the length of time that the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light (that is, when the [[camera]]'s [[shutter (photography)|shutter]] is open) when taking a photograph.<ref name=ray>
{{cite book | title = Manual of Photography: A Textbook of Photographic and Digital Imaging | chapter = Camera Features | pages = 131–132 | author = Sidney F. Ray | editor = Ralph Eric Jacobson| chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=HHX4xB94vcMC&pg=PA132 |publisher = Focal Press | edition = Ninth | isbn = 0-240-51574-9 | year = 2000 |display-editors=etal}}
</ref>
The amount of light that reaches the [[Photographic film|film]] or [[image sensor]] is proportional to the exposure time. {{frac|500}} of a second will let half as much light in as {{frac|250}}.