Warning! Apply shadows sparingly!

Applying shadowing is expensive and is multiplicatively expensive if you apply shadowing inside an animation loop.

Instead, cache a shadowed version of your image (or other drawing):

• At the start of your app, create a shadowed version of your image in a second in-memory-only Canvas: var memoryCanvas = document.createElement('canvas') ...
• Whenever you need the shadowed version, draw that pre-shadowed image from the in-memory canvas to the visible canvas: context.drawImage(memoryCanvas,x,y)

var canvas=document.createElement("canvas");
var ctx=canvas.getContext("2d");
var cw=canvas.width;
var ch=canvas.height;
canvas.style.border='1px solid red;';
document.body.appendChild(canvas);

// Always(!) use "img.onload" to give your image time to 
//     fully load before you try drawing it to the Canvas!
var img=new Image();
img.onload=start;
// Put your own img.src here
img.src="<http://i.stack.imgur.com/hYFNe.png>";
function start(){
    ctx.drawImage(img,0,20);
    var cached=cacheShadowedImage(img,'black',5,3,3);
    for(var i=0;i<5;i++){ 
        ctx.drawImage(cached,i*(img.width+10),80);
    }
}

function cacheShadowedImage(img,shadowcolor,blur){
    var c=document.createElement('canvas');
    var cctx=c.getContext('2d');
    c.width=img.width+blur*2+2;
    c.height=img.height+blur*2+2;
    cctx.shadowColor=shadowcolor;
    cctx.shadowBlur=blur;
    cctx.drawImage(img,blur+1,blur+1);
    return(c);
}