Motion Blur - how to reduce it?

What property of a camera reduces the motion blur?
Is it just the shutter speed?

For example, with my current camera I can take good pictures of some things in motion without the blur (cars on the highway, people running, etc).

But when it comes to REALLY fast things, I still get the blur.
Take a look at this picture I took:


The hummingbird's wings are still too fast and just end up being a blur.
I have seen other pictures where they were able to capture the wings with no blur at all and even show sharp detail on the wings.

It looks like I need something that gives a very short exposure?

Uh-huh. Increase the shutter speed.

I'm thinking faster shutter speed as well. However, you can also manipulate the film speed. Use a higher ISO.

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I took a taxi from LA to Venus in 1985.

..some digital cameras also have a "sports" setting that automatically does this...

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I took a taxi from LA to Venus in 1985.

A faster shutter speed will do it. Make sure you have a large aperture, and use a high ISO film. For a hummingbird you should use 800 or higher. IMHO the motion on the birds wings shows the speed unique to these little fellas. Good shot.

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Nothing is so clean as a fish.

Thanks everyone for the great information. Nice post, John!!

Cheers,
BD

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We could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all exist very nicely in the same box. ...Hmmm? .

Thanks everyone,

I will play with the settings and see if I get any improvement in the pictures.
I do use a digital camera so I can change the ISO-equivalent settings. It can go from 80 through 1600, plus the auto-Hi and auto-low.

I may be able to change the f-stop settings as well.

I think this picture was taken with the auto-ISO flagged at 800 if I remember correctly. So perhaps I just need to manually set it to a higher setting.
Is a lower ISO number more sensitive? or is it the other way around?

Understand that as you increase shutter speed you have to provide more light either by opening the aperture/f-stop or using a flash. The problem with opening the aperture is you decrease the depth of field, so you may stop motion blur but have an out of focus image or at least part of the image. Try using a flash that is adjustable and made to synch with your digital camera. This will give you sharp images. Of course we are talking closeup. A flash isn't going to help on a race car ( panning for that one ). Why would you want to freeze the humming birds wings? The blur on the wings gives a sense of motion and in my opinion is more appealing.

besides shutter speed, a flash can stop action as well.

Hummers....love them

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I am diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

Or you could just explain to the hummer that he needs to slow down -- I'm sure he'd cooperate

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It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. - J.R.R. Tolkien [or "her" in my case.]