Shutter speeds

As an aside to the Newton cradle study on movement, I considered whether it would be possible to estimate the require shutter speed to capture varying levels of movement mathematically.

My theory went that the degree of 'blur' in an image can be expressed as an angle subtended of the subject across the frame. For example, a particular effect might be categorised as a 1, 2, 3 or more degrees of 'blur', with a 1 degree blur corresponding to a subtle movement, 3 degrees a move obvious streaking effect.

Then by knowing the distance between the camera and the subject, and the speed of movement of the subject, the required shutter speed to give that angular blur can be determined using simple trigonometry.

Now to go and try it out!