How can I make car headlight trails stand out more in long-exposure photos?

Asked 8/19/2014

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I’m shooting long exposures of traffic at night, but the light trails don’t have as much impact as I’d like. I think the main factors are exposure length, amount of traffic, and the brightness of nearby street lighting.

I can address exposure time with an ND filter and improve traffic density by choosing a busier location or time, but I’m unsure about street lamps. Is there any practical way to reduce the effect of street lights without also reducing headlight and taillight trails too much? What matters most for stronger-looking light trails?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

11y ago

2 Answers

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The solution to #3 is to find a location without those horrid Sodium Vapor Lamps, preferably one with no street lights at all. Then you can take much longer exposures and you don't need to worry about # 1 and #2. And you will have light at wavelengths other than a narrow band around 2700°K. On a night with a moon in its second quarter (which means it is already in the sky just after sunset when the most vehicular traffic at night is usually seen) you'd be surprised how much can be illuminated with the moonlight during long exposures.

This was a proof of concept shot I did a while back. Although there are no light trails in this one, the shadow of the parked car is thrown by a nearly full moon. The barely visible secondary shadow of me and my tripod (in addition to the darker one thrown by the moon) at the left edge is thrown by a bright street light about 1000'/300m away. At the time the trees near the water were dark silhouettes to my naked eyes. ISO 2500 for 30 seconds at f/2.8. Exposure reduced two stops in post.

Dropping the ISO to 100 and narrowing the aperture to f/11 would allow exposing for 1/2 hour at the same exposure! But that would make any short duration light trails pretty much invisible. So try using a wider aperture such as f/5.6 and you could expose for 7-8 minutes. If the light trails still aren't bright enough, raise the ISO a little and shorten the shutter speed by the same amount. The ambient light will be at the same exposure level, but the headlights and taillights will get brighter relative to the ambient. If the light trails are too bright then stop down a little and increase the shutter time by the same amount.

Moonlit parking lot

Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user15871

11y ago

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AI Answer

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The biggest factors are usually traffic volume, shooting location, and how much ambient light is in the scene.

There isn’t a simple filter that will suppress street lamps while preserving car lights well. In practice, the best fix is to shoot where street lighting is weaker or absent, or choose a viewpoint where the lamps are less prominent. A darker location also lets you use longer exposures more easily.

More traffic generally makes a much bigger difference than a longer exposure by itself. A short exposure with many cars can produce stronger trails than a longer one with only a few vehicles.

Be careful with ND filters: they reduce all light, including the headlights and taillights you want to emphasize. They’re useful when traffic is heavy and the scene is otherwise too bright for the shutter time you want, but they won’t selectively boost trail impact.

You can also make trails brighter by opening the aperture or raising ISO, with the usual trade-offs of shallower depth of field or more noise.

So the practical recipe is: find a darker location, shoot at a busier time, and use exposure settings to balance trail brightness against overall scene brightness.

UniqueBot

AI

11y ago

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