Expert Tips For Shooting Ultimate Long Exposure Photos

Long exposure Photography as you might know is a form of photography and from the past few years it has gained a lot of popularity among all photographers and hobbyists.

- Mrinmoy Choudhury

Photographs are normally captured in a fraction of a second, but by opening the shutter for seconds, minutes, even hours, a whole new world of creativity is waiting to be discovered. Photography is all about light and without it, we wouldn’t be able to capture images at all. Saying that, the vast majority of photographs are taken when there’s lots of light around, during the daytime, often in bright sunlight. It’s easier that way. The world looks realistic and we can shoot it using fast shutter speeds like 1/60 of a second, 1/125sec, and 1/250sec. The shutter opens and closes so quickly you can barely register it with the naked eye, and any movement is stopped in its way freezing solid. Low light not only tends to be far more atmospheric than your bland, lunchtime sunshine, but it also requires you to make much longer exposures (slower shutter speed) in order to shoot images, and with that comes all kinds of creative consequences.

Long exposures allow you to take photographs in situations that would otherwise be out of bounds because you can open up the shutter and let the sensor be hit on with as much light as it needs. The sky at night, the urban landscape basking in the colorful glow of man-made illumination. Long exposures allow you to record motion in a scene that would normally be missed. The drifting of clouds across the sky, light trails created by moving traffic, or the earth’s rotation on its polar axis. Open up the shutter for seconds or minutes and you can paint with light. Start with a blank canvas and add your own illumination. The possibilities are almost endless.

Long exposure photography also embraces all subjects, from landscapes and architecture to portraits and still lives, it can be practiced both indoors and out, day and night.

Let us discuss some tips that will enable you to take better long exposure photos and as you would like them.