A Complete Guide To Long Exposure Photography

Have you ever come across an image with light streaks running across a road and wondered how on earth do you even take that? Or maybe an image of waterfalls that appear silky smooth. The answer is long-exposure photography.

With long exposure photography, you can easily achieve such beautiful results and so much more. As we advance into this article, we’ll see how you can apply this basic photography technique to take images that appear otherworldly.

In long exposure photography, we leave the shutter open for an extended duration for the camera’s sensor to record any movement that occurs during the exposure.

It doesn’t matter if you own a DSLR, a mirrorless camera, an iPhone, or any Android smartphone, you can easily take long exposure photos as long as they have a manual mode.

We’ll discuss the process and some long exposure creative ideas in this article further.

How Does Long Exposure Photography Work?

When we press the shutter button, the sensor is exposed which is then struck by the light entering through the lens. If the shutter is open for a brief period i.e. fast shutter speed is used, then the elements in the image appear frozen.

In cases where the shutter is left open for a long duration i.e. slow shutter speed, like for 0.5s, 1s, or even 30s, then any movement in the frame will be recorded by the sensor. As a result, stationary elements appear sharp while moving elements appear blurry.

An important thing to note is that the images become prone to camera shake during long exposure photographs. Hence it is a must that you either mount your camera or phone on a tripod or rest it on a stable surface when taking long exposure images.

With this simple understanding of the long exposure photography technique, we can take some creative and breathtaking images whether it be day or night.

Why Shoot Long Exposure Photographs

If you look at any generic photograph, everything there is still and sharp. While there is nothing wrong with this, such images lack life.

On the other hand, when we shoot at a slower shutter speed, we have the ability to capture movement within a photograph. Doesn’t that sound fantastic? It’s not a video we’re talking about. We’re talking about capturing motion in a still image.

An image shot using the long exposure photography technique has the following edge over other photos:

• Long exposure images appear more lively and dynamic
• They have a dreamy look and feel to them
• There’s more room for creativity in long exposure images
• Taking long exposure photos can come in very handy in low light situations
• You can capture images that our eyes cannot normally see with this technique

Settings for Long Exposure Photography

Like I’ve mentioned earlier, no matter what device you’re using it is necessary that you have access to manual mode. By using manual mode, you can change the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO of the camera independently.

Long Exposure Settings for a DSLR or a Mirrorless Camera

To take long exposure photos with your camera, do the following:

• Slow down the shutter speed to about 0.5s, 1s, 2s, or even slower. If your subject is a fast-moving one, like a running person, you could get away with something like a 1/25s or so. If the subject is moving at a slow pace, like the stars or clouds, then you will need to go very slow – something like a 30s exposure. It is all relative.
  
• With your shutter speed set, take a test shot and examine the image
  
• If the image is bright, increase the f-number (aperture) to around f/11, f/13, or even higher and reduce the ISO to 100
  
• If the image is dark, decrease the f-number to as low as the lens will allow like f/2.8, or f/1.8 and increase the ISO to 1600, 3200, or even higher if required

The trick is to constantly take photos by tinkering with these settings until you get a fine blend of the motion trails and brightness.

Taking Long Exposure on an iPhone or Android Phone

Whether it’s an iPhone or an Android phone that you want to use for long exposure photography, you will need the camera app with manual controls.

In the case of the iPhone, the native camera app doesn’t have this feature. Similarly, not all Android phones’ camera app has this feature.

For both cases, you will need to download a separate camera app that has manual controls from the App Store and Play Store. Once you install the app, select the manual mode and follow the exact process as with a camera (discussed above).

However, you can take a long exposure on an iPhone using an alternative feature – the Live Photo feature. In your iPhone:

1. Enable the Live Photos feature
   
2. Take a photo of a scene that you want to take a long exposure photo of and open it on the Photos app
   
3. Reveal the Effects options by swiping up
   
4. Swipe left to find the Long Exposure effect and tap on it to create a long exposure image

Following these steps, if you take an image of a waterfall, after enabling the long exposure effect, you will notice that the waterfall will appear silky smooth. Pretty amazing, right?

8 Creative Ideas for Long Exposure Photography

Thankfully, taking long exposure photos does not involve many technicalities. Once you’re comfortable setting the shutter speed and the appropriate aperture and ISO, the sky is the limit.

How well your long exposure photos turn out will all depend on the subject you want to take long exposure photos of, and your creativity. Let’s have a look at some creative ideas that you can use for taking long exposure photos.

1. Photograph Silky Smooth Waterfalls

One of the most common uses of long exposure photography is to shoot waterfalls where the water appears silky smooth.

Since water flows at a high speed in a waterfall, you can achieve smooth results using a shutter speed of around 0.5s or 1s. Take this as a starting point and fine-tune your settings after taking some trial photos.

If you want an even smoother look, you can extend the shutter duration by using a neutral density (ND) filter. An ND filter partially blocks the light from entering the camera. So, you’ll need to expose for a longer time which will also result in a smoother look.

2. Photograph Star Trails

The earth is constantly rotating on its axis which happens to align with the Polaris i.e. the Pole star. Thanks to this relative motion between the earth and the stars, there’s this great opportunity to photograph the star trails using the long exposure technique.

Simply follow these simple steps to photograph star trails:

• Set the lens to focus on manual mode and focus on infinity. You can do so by focusing on one of the stars or at a distant light
  
• Mount the camera on a tripod and point it towards a clear sky. It is also a great idea to include an interesting subject in the foreground
  
• If the Pole star is visible, include it in the frame as doing so will give you an image where all the other stars seem to be revolving around the Pole star
  
• Activate a 2-second timer on your camera to prevent any camera shake when pressing the shutter button
  
• Set the shutter speed to 30 seconds, aperture to the widest setting of your lens, and leave the ISO to 100, to begin with, and take a test shot to check that the star trails are visible
  
• In case the image appears dark, gradually increase the ISO and if it appears too bright, select a higher f-number for the aperture. You can also easily adjust the brightness of the image using the exposure, highlights, and shadows adjustments tools in Colorcinch.

To adjust the exposure in Colorcinch, you can follow these simple steps:

1. Upload the photo to Colorcinch

2. In the Edit menu, click on Exposure under Enhance

3. Now, you can have the following adjustment options:

• Brightness to make the overall image brighter or darker
• Contrast to add a kick or make the image appear faded
• Highlights to control the exposure on the bright portions of the image
• Shadows to control the exposure on the darker portions of the image

Here’s the before/after of the above image after I made it a tad brighter using the above adjustments.

3. Photograph Light Trails in the City

Don’t worry if you do not have access to dark skies to photograph the star trails just because you live in the city. Being in the city still gives you the opportunity to photograph the light trails of the traffic at night.

The techniques for light trail photography are not very different from star trail photography. However, there are certain things you need to keep in mind.

• Find yourself a vantage point from where a long stretch of the road is clearly visible and compose your image to include that stretch
  
• Work with a greater depth of field by using a higher f-number like f/8 or f/11
  
• If the vehicles are moving really fast, you could use a shorter time duration like 3-5 seconds
  
• If the traffic is heavy and the vehicles are moving slowly, you may need to opt for a longer duration like 20-30 seconds
  
• Remember, longer shutter speed will result in longer light trails
  
• Activate a 2-second timer on your camera to prevent any camera shake when pressing the shutter button
  
• With your initial camera settings, take a test shot
  
• In case the image appears dark, gradually increase the ISO and if it appears too bright, select a higher f-number for the aperture

4. Creative Portrait With Long Exposure

We always strive to click the perfect portraits with the subjects appearing tack-sharp. How about going around this rule to take a blurry portrait instead.

A blurry portrait can be used creatively to portray a scary feeling that might be trapped inside the subject’s head. You can also use motion blur in a portrait to make it more dynamic and full of life.

To take a long exposure portrait with :

• Find a location that has minimal to zero movements of the surroundings (like a room)
• Set your camera to Shutter Priority mode
• Set the shutter speed to a slower speed like 1/8 – 1/4s
• Have the subject move a portion of, or even their entire body once you release the shutter
• You will end up with an image that has still surroundings but the subject in motion

Contrarily, if you want an image where the subject is still but the surrounding elements have motion blur, you can follow these steps:

• Find a busy location that has lots of motion (people, traffic, vehicles)
• Set your camera to Shutter Priority mode
• Set the shutter speed to a slower speed like 1/4s – 1/2s
• Ask the subject to move  to a safe but busy portion of the street and remain very still
• Take the photo while ensuring that the subject is not blocked by anyone for a long time
• You will end up with an image that has a lively surrounding but a still subject

Here are two examples with a still subject amidst a busy environment.

5. Light Painting

Light painting is another cool long exposure photography technique that you can use to showcase the artist within you. Using this technique, you can use your surroundings as a canvas and a light source as your brush.

Let’s see some beautiful examples of light painting photos and then we’ll see how we can take them.

All of the three images make use of the light painting technique but have varying degrees of complexities. While the first two images make use of simple resources, the third one requires a specialized LED light designed especially for the purpose.

However, the basic principle is still the same in all the above cases. Here’s what you can do:

1. Find a dark and open area
   
2. Set up your camera on a tripod and work on your composition by deciding where the subject will be
   
3. Use manual focus mode and focus on the subject; illuminate the subject with a flashlight if necessary to aid the camera to focus
   
4. Set the camera to manual mode and use a slow shutter speed (15-20 seconds). You may need to tweak the duration later based on how quickly you can work with the light
   
5. Set the aperture around f/4-f/8 and ISO between 100-400
   
6. If you’re looking to create art in the air, use an LED light to do so, and be sure to wear dark color clothes for the purpose. This ensures that you do not show up in the image. Use multi-colored LEDs for a vibrant effect
   
7. If your aim is to create art around a posing subject, ask the subject to remain perfectly still while you do your magic with the flashlight, LED light, or even a light stick. Again, wear dark clothing and be as quick as possible

Note: If you plan on writing something, keep in mind that you’ll either need to mirror it, or flip the image horizontally later in the post. You can easily flip an image using Colorcinch by simply clicking on the Rotate function under Edit and then on Flip Horizontal button

6. Panning Photography

If you’ve ever seen a tack sharp image of a body in motion while the surrounding is all blurry, and wondered how they take such images, panning photography is your answer.

In panning photography, we use a slow shutter speed and move the camera to follow the moving subject (pan) while the shutter is released. As a result, the subject will be in acceptable focus while everything else will be blurred out.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to take a panning photo:

1. Find a subject that’s moving at a steady pace (car, train, bike, a walking or a running person)
2. It helps a lot if there’s a good contrast between the subject and the surrounding
3. Set your camera to shutter priority mode and choose a shutter speed based on the speed of your moving subject
   • if the subject is moving fast, you can do away with a relatively faster shutter speed (like 1/25s for a fast-moving car)
   • if the subject is not very fast, you will need to use a very slow shutter speed (1/8s or 1/4s for a walking person)
4. Use continuous autofocus mode and place the focusing point on the subject
5. Compose your shot preferably with the subject in the middle of the frame, track them by moving your upper body while keeping your lower body fixed and release the shutter

What determines your success in panning photos is your ability to sync with the subject’s pace. Once you’re good at it, your images will come out brilliant. So, spend some time practicing it.

7. Long Exposure Landscape Photography

Since long exposure photography is a great medium to capture motion, you can take some brilliant landscape shots using this method.

Just like in the case of photographing silky waterfall as we discussed above, we can take dreamy images of the floating clouds, the flowing water, and even the crashing waves.

Using a neutral density (ND) filter, you can expose the scene for several seconds depending on the strength of the filter and the ambient light conditions.

So, if you have an ND filter around, be sure to do the following for some dynamic landscape photos using long exposure photography technique:

• include any water bodies
• have the clouds in the frame
• set your aperture to f/11 – f/13 and ISO to 100, and determine the shutter speed required for a proper exposure using the hit and trial method

Doing so, the clouds and water in the image will appear blurry and represent action in an otherwise still and calm image.

8. Steel Wool Photography

Caution: Since this topic deals with working with fire and potential hazards, we advise that you follow extreme precautions and wear protective clothing if you do decide to try it.

Steel wool, which is generally used for cleaning purposes, gives out brilliant sparks when ignited. It is thus a very popular tool that many photographers have used to take long exposure photos.

The final images appear brilliant but as you’ll see below, taking steel wool photos isn’t as difficult as it seems:

1. The flame appears best when it’s dark so go out to an open location after sunset
   
2. Set your camera up at a safe distance and focus on the person
   
3. Set the aperture to around f/8-f/11 for a greater depth of field, ISO to 100-400, and shutter speed to about 10-20 secs
   
4. Tie the steel wool on some sort of a leash and burn it so that it starts to give off sparks
   
5. Have the person holding the steel wool spin it around in varying directions and release the shutter

To Sum It Up

Long exposure photography opens up a whole new world for creative photography. Using this method, you learn to see that not everything needs to be tack sharp all the time.

The blurs in long exposure photography inject action and life into your images and make them even more dynamic. If you feel that your images lack life, give long exposure photography a shot.