long-exposure1

Long exposure shots are creative ways of capturing moving subjects or scenery and creating on-purpose-blur while keeping various aspects of the image in perfect focus. I’m sure you’ve seen those creative images of a city scene taken from above at night and the car lights are converted into long streaks of colour along an otherwise perfectly focused road, or those stunning images of the ocean flowing over rocks and the water turns from sharp splashes to an almost surreal mist – well those are long exposure shots.

Long exposure images are a result of telling your camera to keep its “recording eye” open for a longer period of time and capture everything it sees in that longer period of time, so instead of capturing one split second of time onto your image, you are capturing a few seconds, or longer, onto one image.
When I first started playing with long exposure shots, my biggest hurdle was over-exposure.

There are two ways to combat over exposure (after your settings are as good as they are going to get) and I will chat about both of them in a moment, first let’s look at basic settings for long exposure photography.

Your key goal is to let as little light as possible into the shutter, but keep it open for a longer length of time, obviously the longer the shutter is open, the more light will flow into it.

Set your aperture (F-stop) to the higher range (F29) as this keeps the lens as closed as possible, blocking as much light as it can (a small window lets in less light than a big window)

Set your ISO to its lowest setting (ISO 100) which also tells the camera to take in as little light as possible.

Until you have the hang of it, keep your white balance on Auto, once you have played around a bit and taken some successful shots, you can experiment with white balance settings.

These settings are your basic ways of keeping light out of your shutter for as long as possible. If you are taking photos with your ISO and Aperture checked and you are still getting an overexposed image, then it is just too bright outside and you need to take other steps to allow you to play with long exposure shots.

Your first option, which isn’t always helpful, is to wait until later in the day when the sun starts to set and the lighting is a bit more gentle (either that or wake up very early to take your pictures before the sun rises and lighting becomes too harsh) You can also wait for a cloudy day! The perfect time to go and play with your shutter speed is an overcast day with muted lighting conditions.

Of course we don’t always want to wait, sometimes we need to take the photo then and there. If this is the case, then the second option and the solution to your problem is an ND filter. A Neutral Density Filter. This filter will act in the same way sunglasses act and will block a certain amount of light from being allowed into the open shutter. ND filters come in different strength; 1-stop, 2-stops, 3-stops, each blocking a certain amount of F-stops of light, therefore allowing your camera to have a longer shutter speed even in brighter conditions.

IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to use a tripod, or set your camera up somewhere steady (don’t bother trying to hand-hold a long exposure shot). It is also best to use a remote control to trigger the camera to avoid the little bit of movement during pressing the button. If you don’t have a remote control, use the self-timer setting to ensure the camera is absolutely motionless during the whole capture process.