My Top Tips for Long Exposure Photography

Long exposure photography is a technique.  In which the camera’s shutter is left open for an extended period of time.

Its takes time to get the shot you are looking for. You will need to fail many times before maybe just maybe, you get a beautiful, photograph.  You need a lot of patience and maybe even a few glasses of wine.  It’s great fun, if you have like-minded people with you.  It’s not fun if you are with people who just don’t get it!   This technique is commonly used in various types of photography, including night photography, landscape photography, and creative photography.

Here is my quick and easy breakdown of long exposure photography:

What is Long Exposure Photography?

Long exposure photography is used to creativity capture scenes that involve low light conditions. Coupled with, making creative specific artistic effects. It allows you as the photographer to capture details that might otherwise be lost in darkness.  Or to convey motion blur in a scene.

What equipment to use?

To achieve long exposures, you would typically use a sturdy tripod to keep the camera steady during the exposure.  Without a doubt, minimizing blur caused by camera shake. Additionally, get your remote shutter release out and learn to use it! f This is the best part. It’s to trigger the shutter without physically touching the camera, further reducing the risk of shake.

What are your settings?

In manual mode, you can adjust various settings to achieve the desired exposure. This includes selecting a small aperture (high f-stop number) to control the amount of light entering the camera. Equally, lowering the ISO sensitivity to reduce noise. Finally, setting your camera onto a slow shutter speed to allow lighter to reach the sensor.

What affects you can do?

This is the fun part! Long exposure photography can make amazing creative effects. All depending on the subject and technique used:

Light Trailing with your camera

Capturing the trails of light produced by moving objects such as cars, stars, or city lights. By you keeping the shutter open for an extended period.  While the subject moves through the frame. Make sure that were ever you decide to take shots from, be sure you are in a safe place.

Smooth Water

Creating a smooth and silky effect on water surfaces, such as rivers, waterfalls, or oceans, by blurring the motion of the water over time. Sunset on the beach!  You can take the most incredible photographs!

Star Trails:

Showing the apparent motion of stars across the night sky due to the Earth’s rotation. By leaving the shutter open for an extended period, stars appear as streaks or trails in the final image.

Night Scenes:

Enhancing details in low-light environments, such as cityscapes or landscapes illuminated by moonlight or artificial light sources.

Experimentation:

Long exposure photography gives you time for experimentation and creativity. It can vary, exposure times, combine multiple exposures, and explore different subjects to achieve unique and visually striking results.

Overall, I love long exposure photography. It allows you to capture scenes in low light conditions. Giving you time to create captivating visual effects that are not possible with shorter exposure times.