P52 Week 32: Long Exposure (August 6 - August 12)

[mollyc]

Welcome to our P52! This project is designed to get you out with your camera once a week in a meaningful way. Each week I will post a prompt for you to consider. The prompts are merely suggestions, and you are free to shoot off topic if you wish. All images posted must be taken by you, be safe for work, and be taken with this project in mind. Please do not post archive photos. For a further discussion of the guidelines, please refer to this thread, and you can find the previous weeks linked there if you missed them. Feel free to join in at any time of the year, and you may go back to missed weeks if you still wish to participate.


Week 32: Long Exposure

This week will be a little bit technical, a little bit experimental. We are going to work with long exposure images. I couldn’t find a true definition of what constitutes a long exposure, but for the sake of this conversation, I will say it is any shutter speed slower than what you can handhold and still keep things sharp throughout the image. Once you start introducing motion blur, you’ve crossed the threshold for long exposure. This speed will vary from person to person and even camera to camera. I have images from two of my mirrorless cameras at 1/20 that are still tack sharp thanks to good technique coupled with in body stabilization (IBIS) or vibration reduction (VR)/image stabilization (IS), both of which are terms for stabilization built into a lens. On other, heavier body-lens combos, I often need as fast as 1/200 for tack sharp.

Long exposures have a unique look to them, typically with very sharp stationary items - buildings, structures, etc., and where clouds or water might be you will start to get a blurred or glassy look, depending on how long the exposure is. As a general rule, the longer the time the shutter is open, the glassier, or smooth the moving areas will be.

You will want to work on a tripod or other stable surface such as a table top. It is often recommended to use a remote shutter release, but admittedly I personally don’t use one and just very carefully press the shutter button while holding my breath.

When you are working with long exposures, particularly those of a second or longer, you need to be mindful of the lighting conditions; if it is bright outside you will need a neutral density filter to help cut the light to the sensor, which basically just acts as sunglasses for your lens. I typically do my long exposures when we are at the beach on vacation and just get up early, an hour or so before sunrise and shoot with ambient light; as the sun rises my exposures get shorter. But a neutral density filter can cut a lot of light, and they are available in various strengths to cut up to 10 stops so that you can do long exposures in mid day.

Long exposures are also great at night near roads where you can get light trails from head or tail lights of cars, or lights on boats and airplanes, etc. I unfortunately don’t have any examples like this, but maybe one of you will take some this week.

Adding a human element can add some fun ghosting or purposeful blur to tell a story.

An alternative take for this challenge, if you find yourself unable to work with your existing landscape and lighting conditions in midsummer is to try some Intentional Camera Movement (ICM). I am not well versed in this genre, but it is something that I’ve been experimenting with the past few months. Although you do need to be mindful of the amount of light still, you do not have to worry about having a tripod; you just set your shutter to a second or longer, depending on your lighting conditions, and then move your camera as the shutter is open. This is a frustrating, yet exciting, genre because you will never end up with the same image twice but you can get a very painterly feel to your photos, sometimes called abstract or impressionistic. Be prepared for negative comments from people who don’t understand the genre, but lean into the creative process and let go of perfection for this if you try it.

B&H Photo has a good series of articles for ICM if you wish to try some this week.

Part 1 (Introduction)
Part 2 (Technical)
Part 3 (Further reading)

As I said, this week will be some technical, some experimental, and how you approach it is completely up to you. If you are joining in with only a phone camera, here is a list of apps that will allow you to shoot long exposures.

I hope everyone has fun this week and I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

 

[katbel]

First experiment with mirrors lights: I used 1.3", 91mm, f25
I'm not sure if a specific lens could work better
Cc are welcome🌷

 

[r.harris1]

I'm still working on food images for last week, dang it, but I did want to talk about the concept of frame averaging (and you'll need Photosphop or Affinity or similar pixel editor, sorry). It's a way to get the impact of a long exposure but by using a collection of "regular" images taken at normal shutter speeds over a sequence of time. An image that I'm still poking around on that I posted in the Panorama thread yesterday is a collection of images at 1/30s averaged together. It was about a 4 minute collection taken at regular intervals. There are a handful of cameras that will do this "in camera" but Photoshop is a great way to do this too. Often in landscapes, long exposures require neutral density (ND) filters for extending the time but without blowing out the highlights (or the image entirely). ND filters are like sunglasses for your lenses. They can be quite dark and dramatically cut the amount of light. Cutting down on the light means it will take a longer period of time to capture the right amount of photons on the imaging sensor to get a properly exposed image. This is one way that landscape photographers capture movement in clouds or make silky smooth water.

If a normal exposure gives you a shutter speed of 1/30s as in my example, a desired time of 4 minutes would require a pretty large blockage of light and probably multiple ND filters. If you don't have or don't want to use ND filters, this is an interesting technique. It's computationally intensive but can be worth it.

There are many calculators to determine how much light stoppage you'd need to achieve a desired exposure time but here's one example: https://nisioptics.co.uk/nd-filters-chart-conversion-table/

Jim Kasson has an interesting article on the technique of frame averaging with Photoshop is here: https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/averaging-images-in-photoshop/

I'll see if I can find one for Affinity.

Above is my "frame averaged" image.

 

[mollyc]

View attachment 2242520

I'm still working on food images for last week, dang it, but I did want to talk about the concept of frame averaging (and you'll need Photosphop or Affinity or similar pixel editor, sorry). It's a way to get the impact of a long exposure but by using a collection of "regular" images taken at normal shutter speeds over a sequence of time. An image that I'm still poking around on that I posted in the Panorama thread yesterday is a collection of images at 1/30s averaged together. It was about a 4 minute collection taken at regular intervals. There are a handful of cameras that will do this "in camera" but Photoshop is a great way to do this too. Often in landscapes, long exposures require neutral density (ND) filters for extending the time but without blowing out the highlights (or the image entirely). ND filters are like sunglasses for your lenses. They can be quite dark and dramatically cut the amount of light. Cutting down on the light means it will take a longer period of time to capture the right amount of photons on the imaging sensor to get a properly exposed image. This is one way that landscape photographers capture movement in clouds or make silky smooth water.

If a normal exposure gives you a shutter speed of 1/30s as in my example, a desired time of 4 minutes would require a pretty large blockage of light and probably multiple ND filters. If you don't have or don't want to use ND filters, this is an interesting technique. It's computationally intensive but can be worth it.

There are many calculators to determine how much light stoppage you'd need to achieve a desired exposure time but here's one example: https://nisioptics.co.uk/nd-filters-chart-conversion-table/

Jim Kasson has an interesting article on the technique of frame averaging with Photoshop is here: https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/averaging-images-in-photoshop/

I'll see if I can find one for Affinity.

Above is my "frame averaged" image.

I have actually never heard of this technique! Thank you for the introduction. It’s basically like bracketing but with a lot more samples? Does it smooth out movement?

 

[r.harris1]

I have actually never heard of this technique! Thank you for the introduction. It’s basically like bracketing but with a lot more samples? Does it smooth out movement?

It does indeed smooth out movement. You need a fair number of captures but it can do things like smooth out clouds and water in an otherwise still landscape, for example.

 

[Janichsan]

I'll see if I can find one for Affinity.

Here's the corresponding function from the official Affinity documentation.

 

[katbel]

I have actually never heard of this technique! Thank you for the introduction. It’s basically like bracketing but with a lot more samples? Does it smooth out movement?

It does indeed smooth out movement. You need a fair number of captures but it can do things like smooth out clouds and water in an otherwise still landscape, for example.

This is so interesting 😎! Thanks a lot for your input
Time lapse makes video but this is similar using instead stacking photos

 

[katbel]

Tried one L.E. stacking 8 photos taken every 3 min
Not sure if it has what it takes

CC welcome🌷

 

[r.harris1]

View attachment 2242787
Tried one L.E. stacking 8 photos taken every 3 min
Not sure if it has what it takes

CC welcome🌷

Very cool! Another tip is to try adding more exposures for that length of time, maybe start with doubling them or even tripling them. It can give your computer a workout for sure, but it can make the cloud movement more pronounced. Anyway, a fun trick to have in your arsenal

I believe that @mollyc has an ND filter built into her X100V - I forget how much light they stop, but that's one of the really interesting things about that particular camera from Fuji.

 

[r.harris1]

Here's a straight-out-of-camera shot of a single test image before frame averaging. Fairly dull clouds and really, they didn't turn out much more interesting in the final shot I posted yesterday (just more smooth). You have far more dramatic clouds in your part of the world @katbel. We do for sure get dramatic clouds, but here on the front range of the Rocky Mountain west, it's season dependent - we like to advertise 300 days of sun except with blizzards, tornadoes, hail and other quick-hit oddities. And this year, torrential flooding and downpours. Golly.

 

[mollyc]

Very cool! Another tip is to try adding more exposures for that length of time, maybe start with doubling them or even tripling them. It can give your computer a workout for sure, but it can make the cloud movement more pronounced. Anyway, a fun trick to have in your arsenal

I believe that @mollyc has an ND filter built into her X100V - I forget how much light they stop, but that's one of the really interesting things about that particular camera from Fuji.

my camera has a 4 stop nd filter. not a lot but makes a surprising difference. and that it’s built in is super handy.

 

[arkitect]

View attachment 2242520

I'm still working on food images for last week, dang it, but I did want to talk about the concept of frame averaging (and you'll need Photosphop or Affinity or similar pixel editor, sorry). It's a way to get the impact of a long exposure but by using a collection of "regular" images taken at normal shutter speeds over a sequence of time. An image that I'm still poking around on that I posted in the Panorama thread yesterday is a collection of images at 1/30s averaged together. It was about a 4 minute collection taken at regular intervals. There are a handful of cameras that will do this "in camera" but Photoshop is a great way to do this too. Often in landscapes, long exposures require neutral density (ND) filters for extending the time but without blowing out the highlights (or the image entirely). ND filters are like sunglasses for your lenses. They can be quite dark and dramatically cut the amount of light. Cutting down on the light means it will take a longer period of time to capture the right amount of photons on the imaging sensor to get a properly exposed image. This is one way that landscape photographers capture movement in clouds or make silky smooth water.

If a normal exposure gives you a shutter speed of 1/30s as in my example, a desired time of 4 minutes would require a pretty large blockage of light and probably multiple ND filters. If you don't have or don't want to use ND filters, this is an interesting technique. It's computationally intensive but can be worth it.

There are many calculators to determine how much light stoppage you'd need to achieve a desired exposure time but here's one example: https://nisioptics.co.uk/nd-filters-chart-conversion-table/

Jim Kasson has an interesting article on the technique of frame averaging with Photoshop is here: https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/averaging-images-in-photoshop/

I'll see if I can find one for Affinity.

Above is my "frame averaged" image.

Thank you very much for this. 👍

 

[rabaak]

Fireworks with our historic watertower in the foreground.

 

[mollyc]

Fireworks with our historic watertower in the foreground.
View attachment 2243138

Welcome to the P52! We love more people.

Please note going forward that images should be new, as outlined in the first post and the linked post describing the project. I'd love to see a new long exposure image that you take this week. 🙂

 

[katbel]

I forgot you can get long exposures with the iPhone when you take Live Photos
and then , once taken , on the left of the photo there is a drop menu and it has long exposure as well among other settings.
Can't look too long at the 2nd one,
at the first I'm thinking at a sort of impressionism technique
but just to do an example of Intentional Camera Movement (ICM)

 

[katbel]

Very cool! Another tip is to try adding more exposures for that length of time, maybe start with doubling them or even tripling them. It can give your computer a workout for sure, but it can make the cloud movement more pronounced. Anyway, a fun trick to have in your arsenal

Just to be clear: do you mean more shots in the 3 min time , correct?

I believe that @mollyc has an ND filter built into her X100V - I forget how much light they stop, but that's one of the really interesting things about that particular camera from Fuji.

Very handy indeed!

 

[katbel]

my camera has a 4 stop nd filter. not a lot but makes a surprising difference. and that it’s built in is super handy.

Is the filter on the camera so you don't need to have multiple ND filters for each lens you are using?

 

[mollyc]

Is the filter on the camera so you don't need to have multiple ND filters for each lens you are using?

this particular camera is a fixed lens camera, like a point and shoot that does manual if you want. the filter is built into the lens so you just toggle it on or off depending on the circumstances.

 

[rabaak]

Welcome to the P52! We love more people.

Please note going forward that images should be new, as outlined in the first post and the linked post describing the project. I'd love to see a new long exposure image that you take this week. 🙂

I guess I mis-interpreted the:

All images must be taken between December 26, 2022 and December 31, 2023 (ideally starting on January 1, 2023, but I know some people like to plan ahead).

 

[r.harris1]

Just to be clear: do you mean more shots in the 3 min time , correct?

Very handy indeed!

Yep, more exposures in that 3 minute window. Maybe try 5 or 6 (or a few more) per minute, just as an experiment. Obviously, it's going to depend on the movement of the clouds or water (as example subjects).

 

[mollyc]

I guess I mis-interpreted the:

All images must be taken between December 26, 2022 and December 31, 2023 (ideally starting on January 1, 2023, but I know some people like to plan ahead).

So the main goal of this project is to follow along each week and work on the weekly prompt. I've made some allowances for participants to work ahead or behind if they are traveling since the prompts were all announced at the beginning of the year. It's totally fine that you posted a photo from this year, but I love when people participate weekly in the spirit of the challenge. ❤️

That said, new participants are always welcome, and this was not meant as a rebuke in any way, just a friendly reminder. 🙂

 

[mollyc]

@r.harris1 so do you just take a base exposure properly then a whole bunch after? I looked at both the NiSi site and Jim's blog trying to piece this together. If I am out in full sun and have an exposure that's say, 1/2500 but want the equivalent of a three second exposure, do you just guess on how many actual frames to take? I could use an intervalometer on my camera to take them in rapid succession. I'm sure there's actual math I could use. But honestly, I've had more than a few drinks already, lol and that math is too hard right now. 😂

eta: i also realize/assume i’d need a lot more frames if my base exposure is 1/2500 vs your example of 1/30.

 

[r.harris1]

@r.harris1 so do you just take a base exposure properly then a whole bunch after? I looked at both the NiSi site and Jim's blog trying to piece this together. If I am out in full sun and have an exposure that's say, 1/2500 but want the equivalent of a three second exposure, do you just guess on how many actual frames to take? I could use an intervalometer on my camera to take them in rapid succession. I'm sure there's actual math I could use. But honestly, I've had more than a few drinks already, lol and that math is too hard right now. 😂

eta: i also realize/assume i’d need a lot more frames if my base exposure is 1/2500 vs your example of 1/30.

I just guess, and while in theory you’re trying to replicate your sensor being open for whatever length of time, the reality of continual capture runs into sensor scan speed constraints, buffer size / draining the buffer and your patience for processing the images if you have a high number. No camera, for example, is going to be able to capture 7500 images in 3 seconds at 1/2500 and no human is going to want to process that many, regardless of the number of drinks .

But to me it starts with whatever effect I’m after. If I want silky water or clouds, I try and judge their movement and speed. If the clouds, say, are fast moving I might get away with fewer. If the water is choppy or there’s a lot of wind, I might need more to smooth it out. I’m not sure I‘ve ever done more than 50 images tops, probably closer to 25-30. And honestly, while this a nice (albeit useful) party trick, I’d still just break out the filters in most cases.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

It does indeed smooth out movement. You need a fair number of captures but it can do things like smooth out clouds and water in an otherwise still landscape, for example.

Yes, this is what our modern smartphones do for long exposures and also when you zoom. It mutlisamples the image and cleans it up.

Olympus/OM has a "Live ND" feature that I believe does something similar, and I think the OM-1 has up to an ND64 mode. Combined with the fact that it's possible to handhold shots on the more recent Olympus cameras for anywhere from 4-8 seconds, you have a lot of tripodless creative freedom. Conventional rules for shutter speed and focal length go out the window with good image stabilization!

 

[mollyc]

I just guess, and while in theory you’re trying to replicate your sensor being open for whatever length of time, the reality of continual capture runs into sensor scan speed constraints, buffer size / draining the buffer and your patience for processing the images if you have a high number. No camera, for example, is going to be able to capture 7500 images in 3 seconds at 1/2500 and no human is going to want to process that many, regardless of the number of drinks .

But to me it starts with whatever effect I’m after. If I want silky water or clouds, I try and judge their movement and speed. If the clouds, say, are fast moving I might get away with fewer. If the water is choppy or there’s a lot of wind, I might need more to smooth it out. I’m not sure I‘ve ever done more than 50 images tops, probably closer to 25-30. And honestly, while this a nice (albeit useful) party trick, I’d still just break out the filters in most cases.

I actually woke up in the middle of the night and did the time math without even thinking about it. And yes, 7500 images would be obscene to process. (For anyone else wondering, it's the inverse of your shutter speed times the number of seconds you want your final image to be equivalent to. So for my example of 1/2500 I'd need 2500 images to capture 1 second's worth of exposure and then if I wanted a three second exposure, I'd take three times 2500 for 7500 images total.)

And despite being a "party trick" as you call it, some people like me have little need for ND filters on a regular basis and they are expensive for a one-off every couple of years. It's an interesting proposition for the rare occasion that someone might feel the need to get smooth water or clouds.

I did buy a variable ND filter a few years ago but it never occurs to me to pack it when I go somewhere I might need it, so I'll have to try this some time.