How do I shoot long exposures in daylight to blur water or clouds?

Question

I want to make long exposures in bright conditions so I can blur moving water or clouds. What settings, accessories, and camera techniques should I use to get slow shutter speeds while keeping the image sharp?

user75 · Accepted Answer

The Technique

Stable Tripod is a must if you want to be able to compose.

If you want exposures over 30 seconds, use Bulb mode, as most of the cameras only meter up to 30 seconds.

Use small apertures, low ISO and add ND filters if there is too much light. You probably want your sensor to be clean also as small apertures will render the dust relatively sharply.

Use remote trigger or self-timer so you don't touch the camera during exposure.

It's better to use mirror-lockup to avoid camera shake caused by mirror movement.

Disable all automatic features, like auto-ISO, auto-flash, probably also autofocus (just focus once from a contrasty point and then switch to manual).

Most of the cameras have something called "long exposure noise reduction" which will double your exposure time, expose a dark frame and subtract it from the main frame to lessen noise. If you're OK with the exposure time doubling, use it, otherwise disable.

When the exposures get really long (up to and over 30 min) you might want to do it with fresh battery. Around these times amplifier noise will probably be problem with digital cameras - it will result purple glow in some parts of the frame.

Should you be doing it with film, keep the reciprocity failure in mind. You can check the needed exposure correction amounts from the film manufacturer's website.

Artistic side

The "long exposures" starting from anything that is not hand holdable any more are usually used to add dynamics to the picture. Motion blur can sometimes result very nice photos, it just needs a lot of experimentation to get right.

The long exposures ranging around 1-30 seconds can be used to play with the balancing lights concept. The prime examples of balancing light work are the photos taken at after dusk or pre-dawn, when there is some natural ambient light available, but it balances well with the artificial light sources.

You can also balance ambient light with flash or other kinds of controlled artificial lightning. Experiment with different directions and vary the intensity.

Here is an example of balancing light concept: photo with natural light only and the same shot with additional artificial lightning (this is the winner of "Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2010").

In contrast the very long exposures are usually used smooth out any movement and create a static and mysterious mood instead. Good examples this approach can be found among Michael Levin's works.