Long Exposures...

Jozza

Jozza

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Can someone tell me where I'm going wrong...

I was trying to take one of those wistful shots of the sea looking all misty, with a long shutter speed but all I got was exposure overload... (All white!)

I was in shutter priority (which i'm sure you'll tell me is the first mistake!)

Anyone got any advice, I'm guessing I have to go manual but what kind of settings should I be looking at?

Cheers :D
 
It doesn't really matter what mode you shoot in Yozza. The main thing is to keep your eye on the shutter speed displayed in the viewfinder and make sure that it's suitable for your needs. How long the shutter speed needs to be depends how much blurring of the water you want, but don't get thinking it needs to be very long. With the usual amount of movement in sea water a 1/2 or 1 sec exposure will produce a lot of blurring. That's not to say you can't use longer shutter speeds if you want even more blurring.

You really need to take a few exposures with differing shutter speeds to see what gives the best effect, or which you prefer. Obviously you need to be using a tripod for exposures that long. :)
 
As i'm always told..... bracket bracket and more .. bracket!

Basically as Mr/MS CT says. Try differing shutter speeds until you find which gives you the best effect/the effect you want. :)
 
You might want to invest in some ND filters - an ND4 should get you a few seconds of exposure at a small aperture in overcast daylight. However, like others have said it depends on how much blur you want to achieve.
You might also want to have a read of the articles on photographing waterfalls that were posted on here a while back. See here. These should give you some good ideas for exposure techniques and minimising blur.
 
Ok, that makes sense... My shutter speed was WAY too long!!!

Thanks guys. :D
 
Try shooting in AP mode or manual, the time can be anything from 1/2 to 30 secs depending on the available light. I took these two pics whilst on holiday, the first is a 2sec exposure and the second was 30sec. There is a similar amount of blur in each pic as this was down to how rough the sea was at the time. You really need those filters if you are shooting on a reasonably bright or overcast day though. hope this helps.


73763528.KUiyqNGz.jpg




73763534.NE06y8uh.jpg
 
This is the sort of effect I was after...
What time of day did you shoot this? :shrug:
 
Switch to manual, bracket the shots and check the histograms.
This one was taken about 20 minutes after sunset.
I piled on a CP filter and ND filter along with an aperture of f22 to extend the exposure. An ND grad was used to hold back the sky.

143s f/22.0 at 17.0mm iso100
74529548.jpg
 
Jozza ...

As others have said ... your 'over-exposed shot' was caused by you having the shutter open for too long and too much light getting in. Therefore, you need to reduce the amount of light the camera is letting in. The main ways of doing this are ...

- shorten the length of time the shutter is open
- use a ND filter to lower the amount of light getting in.
- use a smaller aperture (higher f/stop number).
- shoot when it is darker / more overcast.

I took this shot http://homepage.ntlworld.com/geordie.anth/ascphotos/water/images/water (4).jpg at about 7am, when it was still relatively dark. However, by adjusting your aperture / using filters you'd be able to get the same shot when there is more light by simply 'kidding' the camera into thinking there's less.

Hope this helps you - looking forward to seeing your results.

Cheers

Anth.
 
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