What is Long Exposure photography? [ A documentation of my experimental shots for this technique ]

You might have notice on my recent posts, I've been showing a lot of my #longexposurephotography. Well, that's because I'm getting fond about this technique and I've been practicing a lot on different subjects for this this type of style.

For those who are not familiar with this style, it's basically the setting of your DSLR camera whereby the shutter speed was set to a long duration. With this setting, the elements in the picture that is stationary will result to a clear and sharp image. On the other hand, the elements within the picture that are moving will be rendered as a blur, or obscured. The effect of this technique is best observed when the shutter speed was set to around 1 sec to 30 secs. The duration may vary depending on the subject or the specific effect that you are trying to achieve.

For the 1st image (above), the settings are:

Category	Long exposure
Camera	Sony DSC-RXRr
Settings	ISO-640 f/8 1sec
Lens	35mm
Location	Marina Bay, Singapore

I used the 1 sec as the shutter speed so as not to obscured much of the movement, it was intended to show the part of the crowd itself and also to avoid a "ghost town" like scene for this image. Note that the longer duration for the shutter speed will result to totally blur the fast moving elements of the picture. If it was set to 30 secs, all moving elements within this picture will be rendered to be invisible.

Category	Long exposure
Camera	Sony DSC-RXRr
Settings	ISO-200 f/8 1sec
Lens	35mm
Location	Esplanade Mall, Singapore

In what case do I use the 30 sec shutter speed? I personally use it in cases where the light is not enough to make a decently lit image. I utilize more during my late night photography, when the sky is at it's darkest blue light. The effect of this setting is best observed on pictures where there are bodies of water or cloudy sky. For pictures with bodies of water, the surface of the water will appear smooth or silky like the below.

Category	Long exposure
Camera	Sony DSC-RXRr
Settings	ISO-100 f/22 30sec
Lens	35mm
Location	Marina Bay, Singapore

To conclude, this set images was the result experimenting on the values that I think would suit the effect that I'm trying to achieve. It might not apply directly to the images that you are trying to shoot, there are other factors that needs to be considered namely: light and the speed of the moving elements within the frame. You may use the camera settings shown on this post as your basis and tweak it to result to the picture of your vision. Keep practicing :-)

That would be all for now my Steemit Friends, I hope I imparted something valuable to your photography learning today.

You are invited to share your thoughts about this technique and I will be willing to discuss it to you.

Cheers!

Albert [FT]

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All original photos by author (@funtraveller) using Sony RX1R with 35mm lens