Carmine Loc: Westport, CT

Time is transitional and subjective. It's difficult to know exactly when to press the shutter and to select the correct shutter speed for your subject matter without studying your subject and developing a feeling for it. Is your subject moving? How much movement/time might be necessary in order to tell your story?

Ron Schillow

Call me "Olde fashioned" as I don't have all the bells and whistles for my 57 year old Canon AE1. I feel extremely comfortable with this FILM camera. The only problem I initially had was they were being manufactured to meet the demands of the 1960 Olympics and quality deteriated briefly. All I seem to read on the website is Canon DSLR vs Nikon DSLR which are both very good cameras. But my question to all you experts is how does Sony A6000 compare to Nikon/Canon???? Comments please

Thank you, Ron

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

With the Fuji, top speed is 1/8000, and with the electronic shutter, 1/32000 sec. You could photograph a traveling bullet at that speed. Most good quality flashguns now support HSS (High Speed Sync). Used for fill flash in strong sunlight using large apertures.

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

Is it just me, or do most people overdo those milky smooth waterfalls to an extreme? So many are so silky that they look nothing like a real waterfall, they exist only in fantasy-land.

To answer the original question, I hand-hold the camera for most shots so I have a tendency to use higher shutter speeds - 1/250 or faster.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Perhaps you need to check a few facts. Canon does not manufacture time machines - at least not yet, although I have heard a few rumors about some obscure patents - but the AE-1 wasn't introduced until 1976. I became the lucky owner of one of the first to land in the UK. I still have it, 41 years later.

As for Sony, they make very good sensors, they are building a camera business, largely based upon a legacy of video and the acquisition of Minolta. Early Sony still digital cameras were like video cameras in many respects. The Minolta acquisition gave Sony a team and capability to develop good still digital cameras. They are good products. However Sony doesn't have much presence in the DSLR space, they are focusing on the transition to mirrorless formats.

The bigger issue is at the system level. Both Canon and Nikon have a vast array of system equipment and services that Sony cannot match today, or anytime soon. If the Sony product meets your needs, then it should be fine, there are many strong advocates for Sony on UHH. For personal use - for yourself - Sony should be just another camera brand choice, but they're not in the professional league yet.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

We're having a great discussion about cameras and the range of exposure times that are available to people, but very little of it seems to address the OP's question about photographs as slices of time, which is about the relationship between time and photography in a philosophical sense, from an artist's perspective. I may have misunderstood, but most of the responses don't address the OP's question as clarified:

In my work involving time I have begun to consider my photographs as a slice of time rather than an object.

For instance, if I were to print and display 125 photographs on a wall that were shot at 1/125 of a second, the entire wall would portray only 1 second of time.

This line of thinking was primarily influenced by Hiroshi Sugimoto's Theaters and Andy Warhol's Screen Tests.

Thoughts?

BebuLamar

Hi Ron! May I ask if you're older than 57 year old? As for the A6000 comparison with Nikon and Canon? It sure beat both Nikon and Canon mirrorless. Compare to Nikon and Canon DSLR it's no comparison as it's not a DSLR. In fact today Sony makes no DSLR. The Canon AE-1 is not yet 57 but it does have more bells and whistles than a camera of the same price in its time. As I remember when it was introduced the AE-1 was the least expensive 35mm SLR with automatic exposure controls. The counterpart from Canon, Minolta, Nikon, Olympus and Pentax all were more expensive. Those were the Minolta XE-7, Nikkormat EL, Olympus OM-2 and Pentax K2.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

It's just like you said, its chosen by the user (for each picture), so there is no such thing as an average speed, because each situation need it's own!

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

[quote=Darkroom317...I'm curious what is the common length/ duration of photographs for most people.[/quote]

I don't pay much attention to my shutter speed. I generally use Aperture priority. I would guess that the shutter speeds for "normal" shots are in the 1/30 - 1/2500 second, depending on the available light and the ISO setting.

The fastest "shutter speed" I have used is 1/8000 second. The camera takes about 1/250 second to take the shot.

To be more precise, the shutter is a focal plane shutter, which consists in two halves of a shutter that actually act independently. Each half of the shutter takes approximately 1/250 second to cross the image plane. One half of the shutter starts to move across the plane, then after the appropriate amount of time to determine the exposure duration, the second half starts to move across the plane. For a "long" exposure, (>1/250 second), the first half completes its travel before the second half starts across. For a "short" exposure, the second half starts across before the first half completes its travel, resulting in a "window" that travels across the image plane. For an exposure of 1/8000 second, the width of the window is approximately 1/32 of the total width of the image plane.

BebuLamar

If I understand the OP correctly that he wants to know the average shutter speed of all shots you have taken thus far. Of course it's impossible for me to answer because I can't remember all those. And as he said the "Average" which would be the mean and not median and I believe also he meant arithmetic mean not geometric mean. That is simply add all the exposure time and then divide by the number of shots.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Someone said maybe LR could find the information that you asking about in their library. LR gives you the exact metadata for each shot and each piece of data can be found. I like to photograph wild animals, so I often shoot with a fast shutter speed. I took 16,108 images, more like "clicks of the shutter," in 2017 as I shot a lot of birds in flight. Of those, I most often used 1/2000- 987; then 1/4000- 823 ;then 1/3200-720 ; then 1/2500- 626 ; then 1/8000-518 (sea otters!); then 1/1600-354 and so on. Not sure how useful this is but I have answered the question.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

I went to the link and I like what you are doing. I'm mostly on the other end of the time spectrum, fast. I think you might be asking for too much from many of the forum members when you are talking conceptual, they tend to focus on (pun intended) technical perspectives rather than art. And, several members seem to believe that the more jargon and technical terms they post the more people will think they are knowledgeable about photography.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

That would depend on the format I'm shooting. 35mm (FX) rarely below 1/125. For medium format, usually between 1/125 and 1/500. For large format, rarely over 1/25.
--Bob

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

It's extremely interesting if one wants to explore 'slices of time', especially by subject type. How did you extract the data that you provided? I'm impressed.

Darkroom317 Loc: Mishawaka, IN

Thanks. I knew that would likely be the case. They want to talk about cameras rather than the nature of photography.