RCP Photography School: Long Exposure

Hello to all who’ve joined me on day 12 of this 26 day challenge to learn about the basics of photography.

Let's get creative today!

If you’re doing this course, you probably already know a little bit about me but if you don’t, please check out who I am.

We have been in lockdown after lockdown, and I am ashamed to say I haven't got my camera out as much as I had hoped. But I am so glad that doing this little course with you has produced a little light in my mind to teach the younger generation the basics of photography.

Today I’m going to talk about...

L for Long Exposure

Long exposure is when you have your shutter speed setting very slow and exposing the image correctly to create a slow-motion effect with skies or water scenes.

If you have seen photographs shared by photographers with lots of lines in the sky at night, that is called a star-trial photography (or below, you can see a space station moving in the clear sky, which was taken during a trip to Wilpena Pound, Flinder's Range in Australia, 2018!)

Settings for night time long exposure will be slightly different and will require a tripod (or in this case above, flat ground and steady hands to point the camera up high for at least 30 seconds). However, star trial photography generally can take 15 minutes or longer before getting those 'light circles'.

Another familiar type of long exposure photography is long exposure water-related photography. This might sound pretty simple but you need to be able to get your settings correct, and not overexposure the water - you want to see the movement slowed down in the image, like below.