September 2018 Photo Challenge: Long Exposure Photography

[whitebar]

Generally long exposure photography is considered anything more than a few seconds long. This means that the shutter inside your camera is opened for five, ten or even 30 seconds or longer. This technique can add an air of mystery to your images because it captures something that the human eye cannot see.

Some of the reasons to do a long exposure have to do with adding blur or movement such as: waterfalls, car light trails, star trails, etc. Or you may just require the shutter to be opened a long time in order to get the proper exposure in a darkened environment like at night. Alternately, using a neutral density filter in daylight can lead to some interesting long exposure effects. Google "long exposure photography" for ideas.

Please consider adding the exposure information when posting your entry so we can all learn from your efforts.

Monthly Photo Challenge Rules
◦ Winner of the previous month's challenge picks new theme and starts thread.
◦ You must be the photographer.
◦ One entry per month.
◦ Try and make the image a recent one.
◦ Competition runs until the 19th of the Month.
◦ Voting runs from the 20th - 26th.
◦ Voting is open to all forum members so please vote, the more voters the merrier.
◦ When voting, please clearly indicate - Voting for Post #...
◦ The person with the most votes is the winner.

 

[Cash_Stronomer]

Great idea, and right when I've been doing evening landscapes and sunsets lately!

 

[MarkM10431]

hmm to astrophotograpy or not.. that is the question weather has not been cooperative

 

[troy]

Sounds like a fun challenge. Also sounds like I'll need to break out a tripod, which is something I almost never do. Should be interesting.

 

[whitebar]

While a tripod (or setting the camera on something stable like a wall) would be useful for many types of shots that could be done for this challenge, there are options for those without a tripod as well. Check out
Intentional Camera Movement such as Vertical Movement, Horizontal Side to Side Movement, or Circular Movement. All three of these involve longer exposure time while hand-holding and moving the camera during exposure. This can lead to some interesting abstract imagery worth exploring.

 

[oc_in_fw]

I will be watching with interest. I have always wanted to get into this, especially night photography.

 

[Bob L.]

fine challenge, my thinking cap is on...

 

[MarkM10431]

I already know the shot I'm probably going to recreate, just debating on if i want to wait for rain

 

[MarkM10431]

OP, for clarification, is 5 seconds the minimum time of exposure, or just apparent lag in the image?

 

[whitebar]

Without knowing the image you are planning to create, it is difficult to answer your time of exposure question. This is because there are exceptions to every rule and also because it is somewhat dependent on the speed of any motion in the frame of view. So the spirit of the challenge would dictate close to 5 seconds or longer in most cases. It is not the absolute passage of time, but relative time to the rate of motion of the objects in the frame. That said my intention was to challenge everyone to try something new and so I even mentioned night photos which may or may not have any motion occurring during the exposure. So, "apparent lag" in the image may be perfectly acceptable. I hope this helps and that I haven't muddied things with this explanation. Feel free to PM me if you don't want to discuss your idea publicly.

 

[MarkM10431]

no, it clarifies a lot. an excample of what I was asking is a baseball player. with a very fast shutter, the bat would be frozen as would the ball. with a slower shutter, say 1/100, the bat would be blurred so would the ball. if that would qualify it definitely answeres a question and poses a new challenge

 

[whitebar]

This sounds like an interesting challenge. Have fun!

 

[troy]

'Who's at the Piano'

Details

Camera and settings
Panasonic GX-85
Panasonic 14-140
6 Sec, f8, 61mm, ISO 250

I set the camera up on a tripod and a 2 sec timer, and played the first couple measures of Amazing Grace. I played around with different amounts of time and playing speeds. Lights are on a dimmer and pretty heavy shades in the room so I was able to play around quite a bit with light. Six sec seemed to keep a decent hand shape, much longer and it just got too wispy. I converted to grayscale in post and bumped up the clarity and contrast to really busted up dusty keys. I also added a little grain to it to try to give it more of an old time look.

 

[Cash_Stronomer]

Lake of Fire

24mm, 6 sec., ISO 100, f/16

 

[whitebar]

Nice shots starting to come in!

 

[shm]

Unfortunately the movement doesn't show as well as I had hoped for.

But here is my entry for this month "Sunset at Munkholm bridge"

ISO 200, f/7.1, 25 seconds @ 70 mm with a 6 stop ND filter

 

[whitebar]

This month I wanted to challenge myself to attempt something completely new so I opted to try a star trails shot. This is a stacked shot of 66 images exposed 2 minutes each for a total exposure time of 132 minutes (2 hours 12 minutes). The images were stacked using StarStaX.

"Star Trails over Pioneer Cabin"
This cabin is the oldest standing structure in the Pikes Peak region and was built prior to 1870. I happened to see a meteor while shooting and you can see it above the cabin. The colors are the natural colors of the stars.

Images were shot using a Fuji X-T2, 12mm Rokinon lens, ISO 250, f/4, 2 minutes each exposure for a total of 66 exposures. An LED panel was used for 10 seconds during the first exposure to light the cabin.

 

[davent]

#18


.........................."Alas, poor Yorick..."


//////////////

........................................dave


Street circus rehearsal Friday September 14, 8:20pm. Exposure - 4sec, f2.4, ISO200.

 

[Shutterbug57]

Dang it, I just ran out of time this month...

I vote for #17. Great idea and execution.

 

[MarkM10431]

I ran out of time as well, I'm going with Whitebar's star trails..

my entry woiuld have been this:

not sure it would have qualified as a "long" exposure, since it was only 1/13 of a second, but when you are shooting cars doing well over 90 MPH, that shutter speed is an eternity