Long Exposure 101 Pt1 (A few shots from 10 years ago and a few more recent)

Long exposure photography has long been a passion of mine. It was one of the first 'experiments' that made me really LOVE taking photos. I didn't have expensive lenses (Or an expensive camera!) but I could make something that [at the time] I couldn't possibly do with a point and shoot. A little over 10 years ago, armed with my 17-55 kit lens and a tripod borrowed from a neighbors garage I headed out into the night.

And that was what I got, it wasn't particularly inventive shot, I'd seen light trails and couldn't afford an ND filter. I knew the M1 was always busy and I had a particular bridge in mind for some sharp lines. I headed out pretty late, I was a poor student at the time, staying with my parents for the weekend as I worked as a gardener with my dad on Saturdays and Sundays. In the evenings I'd sneak out for a smoke so Long exposures were the perfect cover. It helped that I enjoyed them of course!

At the time there weren't quite as many long exposures around, a year later, just before I graduated I made a website using my amateur portfolio and THIS (Above) was the heading image. For a wedding website. I know, it doesn't make much sense, to be totally honest as the years pass it makes less and less sense even to me. But it was my favourite shot and I didn't have any wedding experience - frankly the thought of 'seconding' didn't even cross my mind. I'd never even been to a wedding! I digress. Somehow though (I imagine something to do with my super rock bottom prices) I booked over 20 weddings in a month. That photo gave me a career that's spanned almost a decade!

Anyway, you're here to learn about long exposures right? After my motorway at night shot I got a bit more adventurous, trying out light painting in the evenings.

I called this one wings, and was rather proud of it at the time. Again, just a tripod, a cheap DSLR, BULB and a torch!

Essentially, when you're doing night time long exposures it's easy, steady your camera as best you can - Obviously a Tripod is ideal but I've used a few rocks wedged under my camera to great effect in the past. Get creative ;-). Next think about ISO, keeping your shutter open for 10seconds to 3 hours is going to give you more noise than you'd usually see from your images, so keep it LOW! Honestly, there's no reason to use anything other than ISO100 for long exposures (With a few exceptions, I'll talk about Astro/sky photography in a bit!).

Some people will tell you you'll always want a high aperture, why? Well, if you're at ISO100 and f/5.6 and the shot still looks overexposed at 10-30 seconds then you will have to crank it up a bit. But if you're looking at a long exposure even at f/2.8 then you have the luxury of choice. I tend to prefer landscapes, so naturally go for f/11+, but there's some awesome examples of wide aperture long exposures out there, so again, Get Creative!

One last note on night time long exposures - Sky photography! This one was included in this weeks #longexposurephotography contest by @photocontests and in some ways inspired this post.

I love photographing Skyscapes, again, it's a fantastic way to get into long exposures with no need for ND filters. A few things to bear in mind here - first the stars move. It may sound obvious but you kind of need to decide what you're going for from the outset. If you're looking for an epic shot of the Milky Way, best to crank that ISO up to 4000+ and keep your shutter speed lower. Rule here is to divide 500 by your effective focal length (a little trick taught to me quite recently by @Domioanna) to not get movement in the stars. So if we're looking at 24mm then we divide 500 by 24 to get 20.88ish, therefore we stick under 20 seconds to avoid blurry stars.

What about if we do want star trails? In the shot above I did want them, so I kept my ISO low and went for a 32 minute exposure. Honestly I think the star trails on this one are a bit weak, just not long enough! To get full circles it's nearer 3 hours, but my hands were getting cold and I wanted to get back to the hot tub in our rented cabin!

That's it for part one!

Essentially all you need is a camera with bulb mode and the night time and you're good to go. It's a great way to get a bit tricky with your shots and you don't need any extra equipment. I'd love to see everyone else's first long exposures, if you're a seasoned pro then please do dig it out! If this has inspired you, even better!

Coming in part 2 - ND filters and Landscape Long Exposures.

Thanks for reading!