[Xperia Z1 General] One Twelve:
No need to be alarmed. All i'm saying is when HDR is used, shutter speed as indicated in the exif is meaningless. Seems like its the sum of the shutter speeds of 3 exposures.

I remarked that number is quite high as in it exceeded the ability of the camera to take a shot at such a high speed. Same applies to the Z1.

I'm not sure what the max shutter speed of either of these two cameras really is. My guess is 1/2000 - 1/3000.

The issue is usually when the shutter isn't fast enough, either the subject was moving or there was camera shake so you get a blur. When the shutter speed is low ie 1/4, its very difficult to get a steady handheld shot. But over 1/100 unless you're trying to catch a very fast moving object, then you are 99.9% going to be ok. You will have clear shots. Thing is light needs to be bright enough to get such a fast shutter speed in the first place or the sensor needs to be really sensitive or larger than present. We can't go larger so the trend will be more sensitive in the future.

One trick to freeze motion is with the flash. This has limited uses when people are moving relatively quickly, say dancing and light is low. Only good if the subject is in flash range and the flash has to fire faster than the shutter can close. But the shutter has to close shortly after, if it stays open you get residual blur again. Since we have no shutter speed control in android, this is largely hit or miss. As without the flash you would get blur but with flash you freeze the movement and cannot get the shutter to close when you want.

what about those photos impressed you ?

As hamdi mentioned in that thread its hard to tell what we are assessing. Is it the post proc skills (colouring which is subjective) or his camera skills.

From the few shots i saw its his post-proc skills that come through more than the latter. I agree with one thing he said, he wanted to use the one to improve his compositional skills. I have a similar aspiration as well. It forces you to think how you frame the shots and present them in an interesting way. Take a look at this

shot

. Subject is quite ordinary but the framing is interesting and presents the subject in a dramatic way. It could still be improved but the idea is in the right direction. A little crop of the right, remove the cable and you have a nice shot. To me, being able to see this possibility is more valuable than faffing around in post proc. I don't know why that is, maybe because it was so easy if only you had the idea in the first place.

Put it like this, if you can get the shot you want from the camera, the need to post proc them is less. You need good spatial awareness skills to do this. Does not mean post proc is bad. At most all you need is a contrast boost, a little crop or touch-up. HDR is better when sparingly used i think. A photo that had minimal to no processing but with an interesting subject or composition looks better to me, more natural. This is an essential skill for any photographer. It would look good even with a 5 yr old camera phone.

If you asked me how to get a better HDR picture i could not answer because its challenging just to get a simple shot let alone one that is a combo of 3 exposures which you have no idea how it will turn out. Maybe it comes out good, you don't know why, if it was bad you don't know why either.