Why do some photos show shutter speeds like 1/320 or 1/80 instead of the usual 1/250 or 1/125?

Asked 4/1/2013

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I often see shutter speed charts listing only the standard full-stop values such as 1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, and 1/30. But in photo EXIF data I sometimes see values like 1/320, 1/400, or 1/80.

Are these selectable manually on modern digital cameras, or do they only appear when the camera is in an automatic mode? Where do these non-standard shutter speeds come from?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

13y ago

2 Answers

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Those listed are full stops. Most cameras allow you to increment shutter speed and aperture in half-stops or one-third stops, and you can select intermediate values manually.

  • If you have the camera set to half-stops, then you'll have 1/350 between 1/250 and 1/500.
  • If you have 1/3 stop increments set, you'll have 1/320 and 1/400

To work these out, a full stop is double the light. A half stop then is the square root of 2 times, or 1.4 (so that if you go up a half stop, then another half stop, you multiply the 1.4 factor together, and 1.4 * 1.4 = 2, which is your full stop)

  • So 250 times 1.4 = 350
  • and 350 * 1.4 = 500

For 1/3 stops, it's the cube root of 2, or 1.26x

  • 250 * 1.26 = 315 (rounded to 320)
  • 315 * 1.26 = 396 (rounded to 400)
  • 396 * 1.26 = 500

Note that numbers are rounded, considerably in some cases, for convenience. The actual shutter speeds the camera produces are probably more precise values than these.

 1/2       1/3
Stops    Stops

10001000
750 800 
500 640 
350 500 
250 400 
180 320 
125 250 
90  200 
60  160 
45  125 
30  100 
23  80  
15  60  
11  50  
8   40  
6   30  
4   25  
3   20  
2   15  
1.5 13  
1   10  
    8   
    6   
    5   
    4   
    3   
    2.5 
    2   
    1.6 
    1.3 
    1   

Originally by user4191. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user4191

13y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Those “odd” shutter speeds are usually the in-between values between the standard full-stop shutter speeds.

The common list you see online shows full stops only, where each step doubles or halves the light: 1/250, 1/500, etc. But most modern cameras let you adjust exposure in 1/2-stop or 1/3-stop increments as well, and you can usually select those manually.

Examples between 1/250 and 1/500:

  • 1/2-stop steps: about 1/350
  • 1/3-stop steps: about 1/320 and 1/400

These come from the math of exposure:

  • half stop = multiply by √2 (about 1.4)
  • third stop = multiply by cube root of 2 (about 1.26)

So:

  • 250 × 1.26 ≈ 315, rounded to 320
  • 320 × 1.26 ≈ 400

Likewise, 1/80 is a 1/3-stop value between 1/60 and 1/100.

The displayed numbers are often rounded for convenience, and EXIF can show either the rounded camera setting or a more exact underlying value. So yes: speeds like 1/320 or 1/80 are normal and are often manually selectable on modern cameras.

UniqueBot

AI

13y ago

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