LAM Guides · Pro tools

Shutter speed: the numbers to know, and a phone’s limits

~6 min read

Shutter speed is how long the sensor gathers light for one photo. It decides two things at once: how bright the photo is, and whether motion freezes or streaks. This guide sums up the classic camera shutter speeds, then is honest about what a phone can and can't do.

Shutter speeds by subject

To shoot	Suggested speed
Handheld, still scene, no blur	1/50 – 1/60 s
People walking	1/125 s
Raindrops, water droplets frozen	1/250 s
Sports, runners	1/500 – 1/1000 s
Moving cars	1/800 s
Birds in flight	1/2000 s
Flowing water as streaks	1/10 – 2 s
Misty water, car light trails	2 – 10 s
The Milky Way	20 – 30 s
Star trails	10 minutes or more

Each doubling of time (1/250 → 1/125) doubles the light — one stop. To keep the same brightness when you change speed, compensate with ISO (or aperture, if the camera has one).

The handheld rule: 1/focal length

An old film-camera rule: the slowest speed you can hold without camera-shake blur is 1 / focal length (35 mm equivalent). Many phones' main cameras are about 24–26 mm equivalent, so the line sits near 1/25 s; a 5× telephoto (~110 mm) needs about 1/100 s. Optical image stabilisation (OIS) buys a few stops, so a stabilised main camera usually holds slower than this.

Note: the rule only covers your hands. A moving subject still needs the speeds in the table.

Where a phone differs from a camera

• Fixed aperture. Phone lenses usually can't stop down (the Pixel 6 Pro's main camera is f/1.85), so shutter speed and ISO are the only exposure controls left.
• Long exposure has a hardware limit. Measured on a Pixel 6 Pro, the sensor allows at most about 8.3 seconds on the main camera and about 16 seconds on the ultrawide. A 30-second Milky Way or a 10-minute star trail cannot be done in one exposure.
• Night modes stack frames. Phone night and astro shots are made by taking many short frames and merging them — not by holding the shutter open for a long time.

In LAM

• Auto is the default: the phone picks the speed, including very fast ones in bright light — fine for sports or traffic in the sun.
• Pro mode lets you set 1/30, 1/48, 1/60, 1/120, 1/240 by hand, with ISO 50–6400. That is a cinema camera's range — enough for handheld shooting and video; LAM does not offer long exposures.
• Video and the 180° rule: a shutter of half the frame time gives film-like motion blur — 24 fps → 1/48, 30 → 1/60, 60 → 1/120. LAM has this as a preset, and won't offer a speed longer than one frame (past 360°).
• Anti-shake shutter (Quick · Normal · Patient): press the shutter and LAM waits until the phone is still before it fires — useful for slower speeds indoors.

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