What is "shutter speed"?

What is "shutter speed"?

Mark Comon (Vice President, Paul's Photo, Torrance, CA) gives expert video advice on: Why would I use the "image stabilizer" feature?; How do various image stabilizers differ?; What shutter speed range do I need for my digital camera? and more...

With the camera set to a thousandth of a second, very little light comes through. It's open for a very short time. If we open that to a two hundred and fiftieth of a second, a shutter speed where we can hand hold the camera will stop a little bit of action. If you open up to a sixtieth of a second, where maybe the movie camera will be able to see this, at a sixtieth of a second we don't even have the ability to hold the camera still in our hands without image stabilization technology. We open the camera more, to a fifteenth of a second, you can see that shutter's open for quite a long time. And even down to a half of a second. Wow. That's a long time. There's no way you can hold the camera still for that amount of time.