If you've ever wondered how to get movement in your frame how to make water look soft and
silky to street lights or to rid a busy place of people altogether long exposure photography can
get you all of these and it's a surprisingly easy technique to learn. As the name suggests
you're keeping the camera shutter open longer than usual allowing you to compress a long period of
time into one shot and this is the reason why you can get that sense of movement in a long exposure
we'll take that movement to an extreme blur it out completely to give a sense of Stillness and
this shows you've thought about what goes into your frame giving meaning to your photography and
potentially turning a snapshot into a photograph now if you want to shoot long exposures in the
day you can but you just have to use ND filters these reduce the amount of light coming into your
camera enabling you to shoot with much longer exposure times however if you don't own any
filters you can still shoot long exposures and I'll show you how to do that a little bit later on
your camera basically captures light and it does that by opening up a hole in the front of it your
shutter speed is basically how long that hole is open for for long exposure like the name suggests
is where that hole is left open for a long time now there are certain scenarios where you might
want to shoot with long exposures but there are other circumstances where you don't really need
to the way I approach this is to work out what I'm photographing and then ask myself what might be
moving through the frame are the clouds moving is there a stream flowing through my shot are there
people moving through the shot or at the beach are the waves producing interesting shapes that I can
capture you can open the shutter for a thousandth of a second or faster to really freeze that motion
a fraction of a second to give a sense of movement or open it up for seconds to really give a sense
of Stillness now a word of warning with clouds if they're moving really slowly on a calm still day
a bit like today you will have to do really long exposures to create any sense of movement if it's
stormy windy day you can create this a lot quicker and a lot easier on the other hand if
there's nothing really moving in your frame then there's no real need to shoot long exposures and
this is why shooting handheld is so useful for landscape photography when it comes to capturing
movement in your shot not all movement is good if you've got trees in your frame you might want to
get everything sharp apart from that Lake being perfectly smooth and if it's windy and that tree
is moving all over the place this will mess your chances up of getting what you want long exposures
tend to work well with waterfalls seascapes and any kind of landscape where there's something
moving in the frame so watch this I've got my camera set up and I'm going to take a series of
photographs if I take a shot at 1 25th of a second I'll be blurred in the shot but you can make out
that I'm a person and I'm in that frame now with that sun coming in and out I have to add an ND
filter I'm going to put a six stop ND filter on this next I'm going to shoot said half a second
let's see what happens with this you can see it smeared me out you can just about work out that
I'm a person but nothing more than that next I'm going to swap the six stop ND for a 10 stop nd
I'm going to go for a really long exposure then you'll be able to see what happens with this
I've got 25 second exposure and this is going to take a while to shoot but I can walk backwards
and forwards without too much of a worry of me becoming anything in that frame whatsoever it's
amazing how it works that frame is completely void of me whatsoever even wearing this bright
orange top I don't stand out at all now it's well worth trying this exercise for yourself
if you live in a city go out to a busy place and start taking photographs of that place from really
short exposures to really long exposures it's amazing how different you can make that same
place look with just different exposure times the first thing to do is work out whether you want to
show movement or not in your frame is there something moving slowly or is there something
moving really fast through your frame if it's fast you can get away with shorter exposure times but
if it's moving really slowly you'll have to shoot with much longer exposure times again knowing this
comes down to building up those experiences you have in the field but the one great thing with
this technique is that you need to be slow and methodical so you can take your time and you can
take lots of different shots and see what you you like the best now the longer you leave your
shutter open for the more things moving in your frame will blur but this also means when you're
shooting handheld that movement will transfer from your hands or if you're pressing the shutter
button or touching the camera at all so a tripod is a must once you've found a good composition the
think is worthy of a long exposure get your camera on a tripod and make sure it's out of the wind you
can hang a bag from the bottom of the tripod but I've found that it can swing about and cause more
problems than it solves so just get low and out of the wind and it'll make your life a lot easier if
you shoot with a DSLR you need to use the lock up mirror function there are plenty of videos
online to show you how to do that just search for Mirror lock up with the model of camera you have
here on YouTube if you shoot with a mirrorless camera as the name suggests there's no mirror
so you don't need to do this put your camera in manual mode put your camera in the self timer mode
or use a shutter release cable if your lens has image stabilization turn it off I turn off long
exposure noise reduction as it doubles the time of the exposure to process that image no matter
if it's a raw file or a JPEG I have a video on what this actually does to your photos if you're
interested in it links in the description next close the aperture down F-16 avoid the smallest
apertures like F-22 at these apertures your photos can become softer due to diffraction
use the lowest ISO your camera has on mine it's ISO 50 but a lot of cameras have a minimum of
100 then lower your shutter speed until you get a good exposure to do this for now just get your
light meter scale in your camera to Zero from this point you can push it one way or another a little
depending on how your exposure looks on the back of the camera and on your histogram focus on your
subject and switch it to manual focus or if you use back button focusing just focus it and don't
worry about it with modern cameras you can do this at any point through the setup but make sure you
do it before adding any filters talking of filters if the shutter speed is not long enough for what
you want you will need an ND filter which are basically like sunglasses for your camera but if
you don't have any filters and you want to shoot long exposures go out later in the day just wait
for that sun to go down and then start shooting as the sun sets you'll be able to extend that
exposure time and this is the trick to shooting long exposures without filters and once it gets
really dark you can take really long exposures now if you get your exposure time to 30 seconds and
you still need more time to get a good exposure this is where you need to use bulb mode with the
shutter release cable with the camera I'm using bold mode is one click Beyond 30 seconds use
a shutter release cable to control when you open and close the shutter now there are a few settings
that stop this from being accessible like burst mode so if you want to use bulb mode just switch
the drive mode to single shot and it should become available now shutter release cables normally
have these locking buttons on them you press and hold it to keep that shutter open and if you're
shooting a really long exposure you can lock that button in place and then you unlock it and release
it to close the shutter this one has a self timer on it but not all of them do when you do use a
shutter release cable in bulb mode you will have to calculate your exposure times in this scenario
at 30 seconds it's two stops under so to get a good exposure I'd have to shoot for two minutes
once you've done all of that take the shot there is a lot of waiting around with a long exposure
photography just make sure you don't touch or move your camera whilst it's taking the photograph once
you have taken the shot check the still part to make sure they're sharp it's amazing how even the
slightest bit of wind on your tripod can blur your photograph another thing to note is that
if you're shooting with a DSLR the viewfinder is Optical so it will let light in and some of that
light can leak onto the sensor so you will need to cover it if you have the Canon camera on the
original strap there's a rubber piece that Clips over the viewfinder but if you don't have this
just cover it with a cloth with mirrorless cameras this isn't a problem because that viewfinder is
electrical if you want to shoot long exposures in the middle of the day and the sun's out you
definitely will need ND filters now if you're wondering what strength of filter to get first
I'd suggest getting a six stop filter you might not be able to shoot really long exposures in the
middle of the day but as that sun set you will be able to shoot long exposures and much longer than
you would be able to without a filter this is a nice introduction to long exposure photography now
if you don't know what a stop is it's basically a relative measurement of light so if I'm taking
a photograph it doesn't matter what the settings are in the camera if I want to add a stop of light
I'd have to double the amount of light getting into the camera whereas on the other hand if I
wanted to remove a stop of light I'd have to half the amount getting into the camera so a
three-stop filter reduces the amount of Light by halfing that light three times so basically it's
letting in 1 8 of the light it would if it didn't have that filter on when you add a 10 stop filter
this will give you one one thousandth the amount of light so you can really see it's a logarithmic
scale when you add your ND filter you will need to calculate that new shutter speed from the
exposure that you got before you added the filter ND filters are either measured in optical density
the ND factor or stops if it's a three-stop filter it has an ND factor of 8 and an optical density of
0.9 that's a three-stop reduction of light with a six stop filter it has an ND factor of 64 and an
optical density of 1.8 that's a six stop reduction of light and with a 10 stop filter an ND factor of
1000 an optical density of three that's a 10 stop reduction of light so if you get a good exposure
without the filter at 1 1000th of a second if you use a three-stop filter you can drop that shutter
speed to 1 125th of a second and still get a good exposure if you use a six stop filter you can drop
that shutter speed to 1 15 of a second and get a good exposure and with a 10 stop filter you
can use an exposure time of one second now you can either calculate this yourself or there are a load
of apps that will tell you what to do exactly I've got the Lee Pro glass app and it's free and you
don't need to own any League glass to use it you basically tell it what filter you're using what
the shutter speed is without the filter and then it will tell you what the shutter speed needs to
be once you've added that filter so no need to do any kind of calculations the app does everything
for you filters come in all shapes and sizes from the really big square ones that need a special
bracket to sit in to the circular ones that screw onto the front of your lens and nowadays you can
get ones that clip in just in front of the sensor behind your lens the big Square filters look
professional but they cost a lot of money they do take up quite a bit of space in your bag they all
serve a purpose and I have filters in each one of these systems and the one I find I keep using more
and more is the circular one that I just screw onto the front now you can get variable ND filters
and these use polarization to change the amount of light that they let through and the problem
with these is they cause a lot more issues than they're worth they're really good for videography
but not so good for photography sometimes get the polarization that you don't actually want
in your frame as well as some of the older ones causing an x pattern in your frame that's almost
impossible to photoshop out of that photograph so to keep it easy just use solid ND filters now if
you are considering buying your first filter I'd avoid the cheap filters because sometimes they can
give you a horrible Color cast I use the freewell ND filters and these work really well and don't
give a color shift when I attach them by color shift I mean that when you put the filter on the
camera the colors change in the shot sometimes you can get strange greens strange magentas or
Reds appearing in your shot after you attach the filter so you want to avoid this so you can
edit the photograph as normal with a stream or waterfall I like shooting them at around about
1 6 of a second to about half a second this gives a sense of movement as well as keeping some of the
texture in that water if you start shooting them at one second or longer they'll start to smooth
out completely and you'll lose all texture in the water however if the water movement is slow then
you will need to shoot longer exposure times for instance with this swirling pool of water
I had to combine five thirty second exposures to get it looking how I wanted also with waterfalls
it's worth coming out on overcast days this will give you flat light and the chance to shoot them
without any ND filters at all at this location I actually liked how the water looked at 1 13th of a
second the best so I don't always stick to these numbers I just use them as a starting point and
work from there at one second this is what this waterfall looks like for me I prefer having a bit
of texture but it all comes down to what you like and your own personal taste if you want to show
movement in clouds it is a little bit tricky this could be a whole video in itself what I tend to
do is look at the wind speed and the cloud height if they're really high clouds I probably won't be
able to show that movement too well because they're so far away that they would have to
be moving so fast through the frame to be able to show any movement in them when I took these shots
the sun was breaking through some cumulus clouds and the wind was blowing at about 10 miles per
hour this is a two minute exposure and this is a five minute exposure so you can see with the
lower wind speeds you do have to shoot really long exposures if you're shooting at the beach and it's
perfectly still there's no movement to capture whereas if there's wind on the water or if there's
waves coming in this is when you can capture that motion again it all depends on the speed of the
waves and the water but I find anything between one tenth and one second works really well if
you have a scene that you want to take out all movement from the sea once again you'll need a
strong ND filter like this 10 stop ND this is a photo without the filter and this is one with a
10-stop ND you can see it totally Alters the look of the shot now if you are getting good
exposures but your photos don't have anything about them you need to start developing your
own style and in this video I cover everything that you need to know I'll see you next time