Excercise - Shutter Speed

In this excercise i used a running tap as my subject. With shutter priority turned on so that the camera automatically adjusts the aperture to keep the exposure constant, i took 10 shots at different speeds to capture the effect it had on motion blur. I used the speeds: 4sec, 1sec, 1/4sec, 1/10sec, 1/20sec, 1/50sec, 1/100sec, 1/160sec, 1/250sec and 1/400sec.

The results can be seen below.
- 4 sec - water barely visible - appears as a slight mist over the background
- 1 sec - water slightly visible - appears as a blurred mass - no highlights/shadows
- 1/4 sec - water still very blurry - Some highlights/shadows
- 1/10 sec - As above - slightly more highlights/shadows
- 1/20 sec - Even more detail + sharpness - becoming apparent that subject is water - detail in fastest part of the image beginning to show
- 1/50 sec - Darker shadows, sharper and more detail in fast area of image
- 1/100 sec - Image frozen in some parts - lots of detail in slower areas
- 1/160 sec - Image almost all frozen
- 1/250 sec - All frozen, even fast water
- 1/400 sec - As above - Maximum detail

For me personally, if i was shooting this type of subject, i would use a speed of roughly 1/100 sec. At this point there is enough detail in the water while still allowing some motion blur in order to capture the speed of the action and keep the photo interest there.