Get a dreamy effect with long exposures
One of the key features of a photograph is that is freezes motion… unless you’re Harry Potter, that is. In the normal course of things you want the shutter speed to be fast enough that it freezes the scene in front of you and keeps everything sharp; things that are moving too quickly appear blurred. But you can actually use that bur to artistic effect by going for a longer exposure instead!
Before we look at a couple of ways to do this, what effect will it have? Well, the photo above is of a stream running through a butterfly farm. You’ll hopefully notice that the water looks a bit milky, which is the effect of a long exposure and bubbles/splashes in the water. This looks particularly good with waterfalls, and extra long exposures can turn a choppy sea into a beautifully smooth surface. You can also use long exposures to photograph a busy scene, but any people moving in the scene blur or even disappear entirely.
How is it done, though? I usually just set my camera to aperture priority mode and select as small an aperture as possible. The camera automatically compensates for the lower levels of light passing through the aperture by increasing the exposure time. Another option is to use shutter priority mode to tell the camera exactly how long you want the shutter to stay open for. Whichever you go for, though, I’d strongly recommend using a tripod as any movement of your hand is going to show up as a blur… and not the one you wanted in the first place.
All in all this is a pretty simple technique, but there is a problem: having the shutter open for longer than normal means that a lot of light passes through the lens… so much so that on a sunny day your photos stand a good chance of being overexposed and unusable. If you’re taking photos indoors or in poor light you’ve got a bit of leeway, but if you do find your images are overexposing try lowering the ISO speed, or using a Neutral Density filter to cut down the light. With a bit of experimenting you’ll be taking long-exposure shots in no time!
Got a good shot using a long exposure and want to show it off? Feel free to share in the comments – I’d recommend Flickr as a great place to put your photos online.
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