Shutter Priority

The Shutter Priority mode is another Semi-Automatic mode where user can set the shutter timing and leave the Aperture Priority to the camera. The Shutter open time determines the amount of time for which the shutter is opened and in turn it determines the amount of light that comes through on to the film. Amazing pictures can be taken with this mode. Look at the picture below.
















The Shutter speed determines the amount of time for which a image is captured. If you want to capture a fast moving object you need to use high shutter speed of 1/250 sec. Setting shutter speed to this value means that the shutter closes in 0.004 sec and captures the image in that time making it easy to capture a moving object. See the below picture of a moving car.

















But the fun begins when you take a image with slow shutter speed allowing the camera to capture a image for long time. If you see the first image, it is taken a low shutter speed of around 1/8". With this low shutter speed the image is captured for longer time giving us a sense of motion. Look at the following link for some pictures taken in this mode.

http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/50-stunning-slow-shutter-speed-images/

Different shutter speeds are supported by mostly all the high end cameras. The Possible shutter speeds are 8", 4", 2", 1", 2, 4, 8, 15, 30, 60, 125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000. Thus, the fastest and slowest shutter speeds are 1/2000 sec and 8 seconds.

Look at the following link for more information about the shutter speed and different kind of photos that can be taken in this mode.

http://www.all-things-photography.com/shutter-speed.html

Aperture Priority

In all the digital cameras we have many options to select while taking a photo. Usually many users only use the Auto mode as it is easy to use. Auto mode tells your camera to use it’s best judgement to select shutter speed, aperture, ISO, white balance, focus and flash to take the best shot that it can. With some cameras auto mode lets you override flash or change it to red eye reduction. This mode will give you nice results in many shooting conditions. But most people does not know how to use the other modes. The 3 main important modes other than the Auto mode is the "Aperture Priority" , "Shutter Priority" and the "Manual" modes. Here is some information about the Aperture Priority Mode.

The Aperture priority is the mode where we set the Aperture setting manually. To understand this you need to what Aperture is. You can refer to the following link to better understand what it is.

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/fototech/apershutter/aperture.htm

If the Aperture is high the exposure to light is high, so more amount of light passes through on to the film. By adjusting this aperture we can control the brightness of the picture taken. The following picture is taken with high aperture allowing brighter picture. The Aperture is measured in terms of "f" value, like "f/1.8" "f/4.0" and so on.

The Aperture priority setting not only controls the amount of light that comes in, but also some thing called "Depth of Field". In simple terms it will help you in adjusting you focus on the subjects in the image. If the Aperture is high all the subjects in the image are focused and vice-verse. If you want to take a picture with good focus on every subject, you need to have high aperture like "f/1.8" or "f/1.4". But if you want to focus only a single object you need to use lower aperture like "f/16" or "f/22". Refer to the following link for more information.

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/fototech/htmls/depth.html

See the following picture which is taken with low aperture to focus on a particular subject on the image.