Exposure is a photographic technique involving adjusting the shutter speed to create a particular outcome.

Long Exposure is the Manual adjustment of slowing the shutter speed to blur moving elements such as water, cars, or clouds or whatever your moving subject may be. Doing this helps create the idea that a particular object is moving in the image you are looking at. This is why it is really beneficial to understand the manual settings on a camera to fully take advantage of capabilities in telling the story you wish to tell when creating an image.

To fully understand the basics of this Long Exposure technique, it’s therefore essential to understand the fundamental settings of your camera, so you have the ability to manually adjust the camera settings, such as ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.

If you are not familiar with these settings you can download my Free Guide on camera basics here.

By creating a slow shutter speed, the moving subjects become blurred as the shutter closes. It is a great technique to emphasize movement rather than freezing it in time such as sports images.

Slowing down the shutter speed allows extra light into the lens, so you must be aware of the exposure triangle the whole time to avoid light blowouts that are not recoverable. Long exposure on a day out in the full sun might be more difficult than it is at dusk or inside a building. However there are filters you can buy to help with such circumstances. 

Some Examples of settings I use.

Shutter Speed

To capture crisp clean detail, I usually have a shutter speed setting around 2000. However when I want to create movement through less defined shape and blur I will keep lowering the shutter speed to 1/15 give or take. This will allow so much more light into my lens so from there I will also adjust aperture to decrease the amount of light coming in.

ISO

ISO will be at the lowest of 100 to minimise the amount of light coming in since the low shutter speed is letting in so much light.

Creating story with composition and movement. 

Having a strong composition is important if you want to create a compelling image. Movement can help create a connection to what is happening in an image and can potentially add another layer to the story. This is the case for photography in general and really important when considering how you frame and take your portrait.

Consider these;

1. How do I want my subjects to appear in this image? 

2. What is the movement doing for my image? Is it helping create the story, or is it just a distraction?

3. Take test shots and adjust the shutter speed according to the light and movement in the room.