4000 vs 8000 shutter speed

Do you really need 8000 shutter speed? Thanks and take care.

James Crockett wrote in post #18452313
Do you really need 8000 shutter speed? Thanks and take care.

Yes

For sure. (Though anything above 1/7999 is just silly)

Depends on what you shoot. When I shot the eclipse to get the diamond and Bailie's beads, it sure helped.

Sometimes.

I personally can't remember the last time I've seen a shutter speed over 1/4000.

In my current Lr catalog I have 128 images shot at 1/8000 of a second.

No. If you find that 1/4000s isn't fast enough, stop the lens down a tiny bit. Not nearly as big a deal as some make it out to be.

In my Lightroom catalog, my counts are as follows:
~25,400 photos
172 at 1/8000
52 at 1/6400
14 at 1/6000
63 at 1/5000
182 at 1/4000

So that means I used high shutter speeds (at or above 1/4000) less than 2% of the time. And within that 2% of the time, I needed faster than 1/4000 over 60% of the time.
Just some data from this amateur to mull over.

James Crockett wrote in post #18452313
Do you really need 8000 shutter speed? Thanks and take care.

Do I? Yes.

Do you? *Shrug*

I do a lot of HSS large aperture portraits, so I do use shutter speeds between 1/4000s & 1/8000s. I also can just use a low power ND filter. But, I would prefer not to fiddle around with more equipment when possible, so I prefer to have all the options I can in the tool and not just add more stuff externally to it. For that purpose, stopping down isn't something I want to do. And again, while I could use a ND filter, I just don't want to if I don't have to (fiddling with a filter in the field with rapidly changing light is not my cup of tea).

There are few, few times you actually need 1/8000s shutter speed. Personally if I need to freeze apparent motion, I'd rather do it with lighting because it's better at it. An example in the real world of this would be the beating wings of a bee for example (I'd rather freeze that with lighting, rather than attempting to do it with a fast shutter; assuming I didn't want motion blur).

If you don't know if you need 1/8000s or not, you probably don't?

Very best,

I need 1/8000 about as often as I need ISO 8000 - which is RARE.

If you have fast primes and shoot a wide mix of scenes and conditions, you will invariably need 1/8000th. There are people that shoot ISO 50, and would like ISO 25, which is really quite similar in nature. You either shoot at a lower ISO, or a faster shutter, while maintaining the exact look you want DOF wise by locking down aperture.

Once you get an 85L, for example, you will find many times you could really use 1/8000th. The magic you can produce with the control of DOF of that lens will make you want to shoot it quite a bit, even during the late morning/early afternoon hours outside. 1/4000th won't cut in those cases.

Sure one could shut down the 85L 1 stop, but having had one and trying that, I would prefer to not sacrifice the look I was going for, and would rather have 1/8000th and/or ISO 50/25. Shutting down the lens is a suboptimal suggestion, why not just keep a 1 stop ND filter with you for the fast lenses you own. At least with that, you get all the control you want, and 1/4000th would be enough unless you are also dealing with some really fast motion that you want to stop, then an ND won't help either.

If you need 1/8000th, then you would most likely know it, and thus would stay away from cameras like the 6D as your primary camera right out of the gate. If you aren't sure why you need 1/8000th, then you really don't need it, at the current moment anyways.

I recently gained a whole new perspective on 1/4000. I have almost never run into the 1/4000 'problem' with my 6D. I've always had ISO 50 available, and stopping down 1/3 to 2/3 stop never seemed like much of a sacrifice. Last weekend I was outside with my new camera, and the 85 1.8. I ended up having to stop down to f/4-4.5 a few times, because I was limited to 1/4000... by my ASA 200 Fuji Film. With the 6D, I could have shot at f/2. With the Elan 7NE, I was stuck two stops slower. Glad I didn't have 800 film loaded.

ASA? OMG!




1/4000 has not been a problem for me. A polarizer is about a stop of difference and I often shoot with one outside anyway.

Anytime you want to shoot F1.4 in the full sun. You need 1/8000