The shutter elapsing was 30 seconds. I used a flashlight throughout the unshortened exposure to add light to the main elements.

This week’s tip was conceived while driving through the mountains and listening to Deep Tracks on satellite radio. The sound of a lone cowbell filled the air, which was immediately followed by a fuzz guitar accompanied by a lead guitar. A huge smile filled my squatter as I immediately knew the iconic tune. It had been a long time since hearing “Time.” I immediately sang withal while I thought well-nigh the concept of time regarding shutter speeds and how they impact the end result of a photo. If you know the lyric, sing along…… “Now the time has come, there are things to realize.” AH HA! A Tip of the Week—I share my thoughts on how the concept of time impacts an image.

Because both images were made under overcast daylight skies, I had to use ND filters to obtain slow unbearable exposures to provide the cotton snacks effect on the water.

A upper shutter speed is hair-trigger in stopping high-speed motion: race cars, sports action, birds in flight, freezing a falling waif of water, etc. Conversely, and the focus of this week’s tip, I want to show the concept of elongated time. I want the whoopee to mistiness wideness the sensor, I want to exaggerate the motion of whatever moves and I want to share a few other instances where slow shutters are beneficial.

Both were made in low light at dawn. Each needed a small working vent to obtain the required front-to-back depth of field. The resulting shutter speeds: the image on the left was 1 second; the one on the right was 14 seconds.

The Obvious

Common sense and uninventive photographic knowledge tell you that slow shutters are necessary for low-light situations: dawn and dusk, star trails, municipality lights at night, to imbricate expanded depth of field with small apertures, indoors, etc. But that’s not what this week’s tip is about. This week I concentrate on how and why you want to use slow shutters during the day to get creative. I moreover throw in a few other examples of “slow down, you’re movin’ too fast.”

The violin was made indoors using a modeling light and studio strobe. At the end of a 2-second exposure, while I moved the camera, I fired the strobe to freeze the action. Thunder Bolt was zoomed and stalled. Tripod mounted, I started with 1/2 second and no movement, zoomed the lens, and at the end of the zoom I stalled flipside 1/2 second.

The Basics

During daylight hours, you have to cut when on the value of existing light to use slow shutter speeds. The easiest way is with neutral-density filters. They come in strengths of one to 10 stops. I own a three stop, six stop and a variable neutral-density filter in which I can dial in up to 10 stops. Your viewfinder will be dark, so it’s weightier to create your sonnet and then nail the ND filters. Pair ND filters with small apertures to net the longest possible exposure. The metering system in the camera will automatically retread the exposure and provide a readout of how long the shutter needs to remain open.

The image of the snow geese was photographed at 1/15th of a second. For the trees, I used a pan and tilt throne and slowly moved only the vertical wangle upward for 2.5 seconds.

Tripod It

Given the long exposure times you’ll utilize, it’s essential to use a hefty tripod. Winds can exacerbate an once tricky situation and there have been times I’ve had to undeniability off a session as it was untellable to alimony the camera still. At some point during the exposure, each gust ruined the file. Withal with the tripod, use a subscription release or remote trigger. Depending on the elapsing of the exposure, pressing the shutter may introduce too much camera movement.

I used the same principle of slow water to illustrate that anything that moves can depict motion. I threw sand on the rocks during a five second exposure so while it fell, it would have the same cotton snacks effect as the water.

Technique

The increasingly times you get into the field to create long shutter exposures, your success level will escalate. In turn, you’ll want to experiment with longer and longer exposure times. This stuff the case, enable long exposure noise reduction. It appears in the custom menu settings. Noise can be remoter reduced via software.

To learn increasingly well-nigh this subject, join me on a photo safari to Tanzania. Visit www.russburdenphotography.com to get increasingly information.

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