Do very fast shutter speeds reduce image quality in bright daylight?
Asked 9/16/2016
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I shoot outdoors in bright daylight with a Canon 600D and a Canon 70-200mm f/4L. I usually want a blurry background, so I keep the lens wide open at f/4 and use a low ISO (around 100–400). That often pushes my shutter speed up to around 1/1600 to 1/2500 or faster for correct exposure. Can very fast shutter speeds by themselves reduce image quality or sharpness?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
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In general, shutter speed can affect IQ in several ways:
- Directly, by interacting badly with the natural pulsing frequency of lighting (particularly long-tube fluorescent lights and some cheap LEDs and CFLs), resulting in uneven lighting in different parts of the image (with a rolling electronic shutter) or inconsistent exposure between shots (with a global electronic shutter or mechanical shutter).
- Directly, by interacting badly with the timing of a flash.
- Indirectly, by forcing an aperture that isn't sharp on your particular lens.
- Wide apertures have shallow DOF, so if the lens exhibits back/front-focusing, it can be soft.
- Narrow apertures can be less sharp because the lens becomes diffraction-limited.
- Indirectly, by forcing a higher ISO (which adds noise).
- Aesthetically, by freezing motion that you might prefer to have blurred.
In your particular case, #1 doesn't apply, #2 applies only a fill flash, and #3 doesn't apply because you have enough light to use a relatively low ISO. However, they're all worth keeping in mind when you're shooting indoors, in cloudy weather, etc.
Originally by user25054. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user25054
9y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Usually, no. Fast shutter speeds such as 1/1600, 1/2500, 1/4000, or even 1/8000 do not inherently reduce image quality.
What can affect results is the overall exposure setup, not the fast shutter speed itself:
- Wide apertures can make focus errors more noticeable because depth of field is shallow.
- Stopping down too far can reduce sharpness because of diffraction.
- Raising ISO to enable a certain shutter speed can add noise.
- Under some artificial lights, certain shutter speeds can interact with light flicker and cause uneven exposure or brightness variation.
- Flash use can also be affected by shutter timing.
One answer also notes that at the extreme limit of a mechanical shutter, there can be a slight sharpness loss effect, but for normal daylight shooting this is generally not a practical concern.
So for bright outdoor portraits in daylight, using a fast shutter speed to keep f/4 and low ISO is normally fine and should not hurt image quality by itself.
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