If you’ve ever wondered how to get movement in your frame? How to make water look soft and silky, to streak lights or to rid a busy place of people all-together? Long exposure photography can get you all of these, and it is a surprisingly easy technique to learn.

As the name suggests, long exposure photography involves keeping your camera shutter open longer than usual, allowing you to compress a long period of time into the one shot, and this is the reason why you can get that sense of movement in long exposures or take that movement to an extreme and blur it out completely to give a sense of stillness. This shows that you have thought about what goes into your frame; giving meaning behind your photography, potentially turning a snapshot into a photograph.

If you want to shoot long exposures in the day, you will need to use an ND filter. These just reduce the amount of light getting in to your camera, so you can shoot with longer shutter speeds than normal… however, if you don’t have any filters, you can still shoot long exposures, and I’ll also cover that in this article.

The Basics of Long Exposure Photography

Your camera captures light, it does that by opening a hole in the front of the camera. The shutter speed, is basically how long you are opening this hole for. The longer the hole is open, the more light will be let into your camera.

Exposure time and shutter speed are basically the same thing and are measured in time; either a fraction of a second, seconds or minutes.

The aperture is the size of the hole in your camera and is measured in a unit called an f number. This is a ratio of the lenses focal length divided by the diameter of the entrance pupil … which sounds complicated, but all you really need to know is the smaller the f number the bigger the aperture.

So if the aperture letting light in is really big, say with an f number of 4, it will let in lots of light whereas if it is really small, say at f16 or f22, it will let in less light.

A long exposure is basically where that hole is left open for a long time.

Why would you want to shoot with long exposures?

There are certain scenarios where you might want to shoot with long exposures but there are circumstances where you really don’t need to.

The way I approach this is to ask myself what I am photographing and what movement could there be in my frame.

Are the clouds moving through my frame?
Is there a stream flowing through my shot?
Are there people moving through the shot and do I want to show them or get rid of them?
At the beach, are the waves producing interesting shapes that I can capture?

You can open the shutter for a thousandth of a second or faster to freeze this motion, a fraction of a second to give a slight sense of movement or you can open it up for seconds at a time to get rid of any sense of movement, creating that stillness.

A word of warning with clouds though; if they are moving really slowly, you might have to shoot with a much longer exposure time… I’m talking tens of minutes for each shot to capture that movement whereas if it is really windy, you can use shorter exposure times and still capture that movement.

This was a 25 second exposure … I should have taken a 5 minute exposure to really blur the clouds

On the other hand, if there is nothing really moving in the frame, there is no need to shoot a long exposure … and this is why handheld photography can be really useful in landscape photography.

Nothing was moving that fast in this shot, so it was fine as a handheld short exposure photograph

Movement is what you need for Long Exposures

When it comes to capturing movement, not all movement is good. If you have trees in your frame and it is windy, this can really mess up your shot with a long exposure. you might want to get everything sharp with smooth water, but if the tree is moving about all over the palace, then this will mess up your chances of getting what you want.

Once you understand this technique, you need to go out and take lots of photos building up your experience, as this is one of the best ways to understand this process completely. Also it will help you to determine what you like and what you don’t like.

Long exposures tend to work well with waterfalls, seascapes, and any kind of cloud movement where you want to accentuate that movement, there just has to be movement in your frame.

If you are a street photographer, you can also use it to show the hustle and bustle of the people in your frame … or you can go really long and get rid of people all together.

Simon Brodbeck and Lucie de Barbuat did a series called Silent World where they took really long photographs in very busy places in and around Paris, using this technique amongst others.

A spooky scene from Paris by Simon Brodbeck and Lucie de Barbuat

What Different Exposure Times do to Your Photos

If I take a shot with a shutter speed of 1/25 second; as I walk through the frame, it will capture me … I am blurred but you can tell it is me walking.

If I lower the shutter speed to say 1/2 second, then it will still show me, but will blur me out more giving that sense of fast movement. This is great if you want to show movement of those people but you might not want to show the identity of that person.

But then, if I get a strong ND filter on my camera, I can take a 25 second exposure… and if I walk through the frame, I am not there at all. In this shot, I walked back and forth a few times and I am no where to be seen. This is why in the shot taken in Paris by Lucie and Simon, there is no one apart form that lone figure (which I think they photoshopped in to the frame).

It is worth trying this exercise for yourself. If you are in a city or know of a busy place go out, get your camera on a tripod and shoot a set of photographs with different exposure times and see how it affects your photos, from really short exposure times to much longer exposure times.

How to shoot long exposures

The first thing to do is work out what movement you want to show in your frame?

is it a slight bit of movement or a lot of movement? and how fast is that thing moving through your frame?

If it is fast, you can get away with shorter exposure times, but if it is moving more slowly, you will need longer exposure times.

Or if it is a water surface where you want to smooth it out completely, you just need as long as you can go.

Again, knowing this comes down to building on your experiences out in the field.

But the one great thing with this technique is that, as you need to be slow and methodical, you can try different exposure times to see what works best for you in the environment you are shooting in.

Do be aware that hours will pass really quickly as those exposure times are long and it is easy to get carried away with it.

Now the longer you leave your shutter open for, the more any moving things will blur in your frame, but also any movement from your hands will also transfer to your frame, which can ruin your photograph, so a tripod is a must.

Once you have found a good composition you think is worthy of a long exposure:

Get your camera on a tripod and make sure it is out of the wind.
You can hang a bag from the bottom of the tripod, but I have found that it can swing about and cause more problems than it solves … so just get low and out of the wind and it will make your life easier.
If you shoot with a DSLR, you need to use the lock up mirror function… and there are plenty of videos on line to show you how to do that, just search for mirror lockup with the model of camera you have on YouTube.
If you shoot with a mirrorless camera, as the name suggests, there is no mirror, so you don’t need to do this.
Put your camera in manual mode.
Put your camera in the self timer mode… or use a shutter release cable.
If your lens has image stabilisation, turn it off.
I turn off long exposure noise reduction as it doubles the time of the exposure, to process the image, no matter if it is a RAW file or a jpeg. I have a video on what this actually does to your photos if you are interested in it, linked here.
Next close the aperture down to f16. Avoid the smallest apertures like f22, at these apertures your photos can become softer due to diffraction… which is a story for another day.
Use the lowest ISO your camera has, on mine it is ISO50, but a lot of cameras have a minimum of 100.
Then lower your shutter speed until you get a good exposure… to do this, just get your light meter scale in your camera to 0. From this point, you can push it one way or the other a little, depending on how your exposure looks on the back of the camera, and on your histogram.
Focus on your subject and switch it to manual focus … with modern cameras, you can do this at any point through the setup, but make sure you do it before adding any filters.

Troubleshooting Long Exposure Photography

If the shutter speed is not long enough for what you want, you will need an ND filter, which are basically like sunglasses for your camera.
If you get your exposure time to 30 seconds and you still need more time to get a good exposure, this is when you need to use bulb mode with a shutter release cable. With the camera I am using, bulb mode is one click beyond 30 seconds.
Bulb mode, is where you use a shutter release cable to control when you open and close the shutter. You press, hold and lock it to open the shutter, and then unlock and release it to close the shutter. This one also has a timer on it, but not all of them do.
If you are shooting with a DSLR, because the viewfinder is optical, it can let light into your camera so you will need to cover it. With Canon cameras, there is a bit of rubber on the camera strap which does this, but if you don’t have one of these, just cover the viewfinder with a cloth so no light gets in.
With a mirrorless camera, this isn’t a problem as the viewfinder is electrical.
When it comes to unwanted movement, if you are on a bridge, or a walkway, these aren’t always solid, so you might still get some movement in your tripod which will soften your photo. When I am shooting from structures like this, I keep as still as possible and take the shot when there is no one walking past or no cars driving past.

What is a Stop of Light?

Now if you don’t know what a stop of light is, it is basically a relative measurement of light. So if you are taking a photograph and it lets in x amount of light, if you want to add a stop of light, you will have to double the amount of light let in to your camera by changing either shutter speed or aperture. If you want to reduce the amount of light by one stop, you would halve the amount of light getting into your camera by once again, changing aperture or shutter speed.

So a 3 stop filter reduces the amount of light by halving that light three times, basically giving you 1/8 of the amount of light you would have without the filter.

With a 10 stop filter, this gives you 1/1000 the amount of light. So you can see this is a logarithmic scale doubling or halving for each stop added or taken away.

Long Exposure Photography without ND Filters

If you don’t have any filters and want to shoot long exposures, go out later in the day, just wait for the sun to go down and then start shooting.

As the sun sets, you will be able to shoot with longer and longer exposure times … this is the trick to getting long exposures without filters.

You will have to be patient, and you won’t have as much control but you will be able to get longer and longer exposures as it gets darker.

Another way to get really long exposures without filters is to go out at night during a full moon. The moon is basically like a reflector in the sky for the light from the sun.

If you make the exposure long enough, you can make a night scape look like daytime. In this photograph below, I took it on one of the busiest weekends of the holidays. In the day this shot would have been impossible, but by going out at 2am, I was the only person there and was able to shoot a 20 second exposure and make it look like daytime.

If you want to shoot long exposures in the middle of the day, and it is sunny, you will definitely need a 10 stop filter.

If you are shooting at sunrise or sunset, you might not need a filter, but a 3 stop filter is good to extend that exposure time, and as the sun rises, a 6 stop filter is also good to keep those exposures long.

It is worth having a selection of filters, if this is something you find really enjoyable, so you have options for lots of different scenarios.

ND Filters For Long Exposure Photography

Filters come in all shapes and sizes, from the bigger square filters, circular filters, to clip in filters.

They all serve a purpose and I have one of each of these systems … and I find I use the circular filters more than any of the others…

The big square filters look professional, but they cost a lot of money.

If you area considering buying your first filter, I’d say to avoid the really cheap filters as these can give you some strange colours.

Matt Granger did a test a while back where he bought 10 different ND filters and it is a really interesting watch.

I use the freewell magnetic filters and these work well with no visible shift in colours from what it would look like without the filters … and this is what you are looking for with ND filters. You want to be able to shift the settings and have the same colours in your frame.

If you are looking at getting circular filters, just get them at the size of your biggest lens filter thread and then get some step up rings so you can attach it to all of your lenses.

When you add your ND filter, you will need to calculate the new shutter speed from the exposure you got without the filter.

ND filters are either measured in optical density, the ND factor or stops. I call them by how many stops they reduce the light by but some manufacturers use one or more of these naming types.

If it is a 3 stop filter, it has an ND factor of ND8 and an optical density of 0.9, that is a 3 stop reduction of light,

With a 6 stop filter, it has an ND factor of ND64 and an optical density of 1.8 that is a 6 stop reduction of light.

And with a 10 stop filter, an ND factor of ND1000, an optical density of 3, that is a 10 stop reduction of light.

If you get a good exposure without a filter at 1/1000, with a 3 stop filter you will get the same exposure at 1/125 second, with a 6 stop filter, you can shoot at 1/15 second and with a 10 stop filter, you will be able to shoot with a 1 second exposure.

You can either calculate this, or there are many apps you can download for free to help you.

I use the Lee Pro Glass app … its free and you don’t need to own lee glass filters to use it.

You tell it what filter you are using, what the shutter speed is without the filter and then it will tell you what to set the shutter speed to, when the filter is added, and this is why you need to use manual mode when shooting with strong ND filters, so you can adjust the shutter speed to suit.

If you add your filter, take a shot and the shutter speed becomes too long for the effect you want, adjust the aperture and iso to suit. I see these settings as a way of fine tuning the exposure time.

Are Variable ND filters any good for Long Exposure Photography?

There are filters that are called variable ND filters, that use polarisation to change the amount of light they let in depending on how you rotate them. These are good for video, but I wouldn’t recommend them for photography because it is easy to get an X pattern in your frame, which you cannot remove in photoshop easily, especially with wide angles as well as adding certain levels of polarisation you might not want.

Cheat Code to Getting a Good Exposure

If you are not sure about how to set up your camera to get a good exposure, you can cheat a little by putting it into one of the automatic modes and then remembering and copying the settings across to manual mode. And also if you are not sure about how to get a good exposure, I have a video on that as well, linked in the description.

Waterfall Photography and Long Exposures

This was taken at 1/6 second to give the sense of movement

With a stream or waterfall, I like shooting them at about 1/6 to about 1/2 second. This gives a sense of movement as well as keeping some of the texture in that water.

If you start shooting them at 1 second or longer, they will start to smooth out completely and you’ll loose texture in them… however, if the water movement is slow, then you will need to shoot longer exposure times.

For instance with this swirling pool of water, I had to combine 5, 30 second exposures to get it looking how I wanted.

Another tip with waterfalls is to use a polariser… this will help with the reflective light off rocks and the water, making it look more saturated as well as taking the reflection off the water … if that’s the look you want.

Also with waterfalls, it is worth coming out on overcast days, this will give you flat light and the chance to shoot them without any ND filters at all.

Clouds and Long Exposure Photography

With clouds, you need to know about the windspeed and the hight of those clouds as well as the type of clouds … and that could be a whole video in itself.

I look to see if they are high clouds, these tend to keep quite still relative to your position, especially if it is a calm weather day.

Whereas if it is stormy, windy day and the clouds are lower, these will move much faster.

If it is overcast, you will struggle to show movement in the clouds as they will just blur out into a white sky especially with really long exposures, whereas if you have patchy blue skies this will help add to the differences in the sky which will show that movement more, especially if you add a polariser as well as an ND filter.

Again Polarisers can help by darkening the blues in your skies and deepen the colours if you are shooting 90 degrees to the angle of the sun.

Seascapes and Long Exposure Photography

Calm seas from a long exposure photograph — 30 second exposure calms the rough sea

If you are shooting the sea and it is perfectly still, there is no real way to show any kind of movement, whereas when the wind is on the water, or there are waves coming in, these can really add to your shots.

Again, it all depends on the speed of the waves and water, but I find anything between 1/10 and 1 second to work really well.

Also, try taking the shots when the water is sucking back, this will give you some great leading lines.

If you have a scene that you want to take out all movement from the sea, once again, you will need a strong ND filter, like this 10 stop ND.

This is a photo without the filter, and this is one with the 10 stop ND. You can see it totally alters the look of the shot.

Conclusion to Long Exposure Photography

All you really need to know is how to set a good exposure in manual mode, then with the introduction of ND filters how to adjust the shutter speed to suit, or without a filter shooting later into the evening, this will help you slow your shutter speeds down enough to blur that movement, and as long as your camera is perfectly still, this will give you a unique photograph.

Now if you are getting good exposures but they aren’t very compelling photographs, maybe you need to work on getting phots that are unique to you, in this video below, I give you 5 steps to work on this, helping you get a voice of your own.

I’ll see you next time.