What is exposure in photography. Long and short exposures in cameras
Photography is a frozen moment, so the pictures, the authors of which managed to convey the beauty and power of movement in one frame, are especially interesting. These photographs are taken with long exposure. It is a slow shutter speed that allows you to capture beautiful traces of the movement of subjects.
Setting the camera for long exposure photography
So: first, mount your camera on a tripod. The more stable the camera, the better. It is better to use a shutter timer or a cable to avoid the slightest camera shake.
In the settings, select shooting with "shutter priority". Set the shutter speed to 1/10 second or more. You will have to experiment with the settings. It all depends on the degree of illumination of the scene and the speed of the movement that you are going to shoot.
When shooting during the day, you will have to use neutral density filters. They allow you to reduce the amount of light entering the matrix without changing image parameters such as contrast and color. In fact, this is the main attribute of long exposure shooting during daylight hours.
1. Water
We have all seen such photographs: the sea coast, a waterfall, a stream with streams of water blurred in motion. It looks beautiful, and many people want to take a similar picture of moving water on their own. A photographer who decides to shoot such a scene will have to experiment with the settings. A shutter speed of 1/4 second is suitable for shooting a turbulent stream, and equal to 20 seconds is suitable for shooting quiet streams. To compensate for the amount of light entering the matrix (due to the high shutter speed), you will need to set a low aperture value (f7 and beyond). It is also worth setting the minimum ISO value. If the shutter speed is not long enough, you can use a neutral density filter, which will allow you to shoot during the day at "night" exposure values.
Long exposure rain 2. City streets and transport
The streets of a modern city are filled with movement: cars, people - everyone is in a hurry somewhere. Streams of light flow around historical buildings. A long exposure camera is able to capture trajectories and show us city life from a point somewhere above the stream of vain time. The movement of a train, tram or car can be easily blurred even with fairly fast shutter speeds. However, it is better to use a tripod for shooting street scenes.
Here, for example, is a beautiful shot with traffic lights. Guess why he looks so mysterious?
What looks weird in this picture? 
David Mar Quinto connects two symbols of London in one shot 
Japanese photographer Shinichi Higashi takes long-exposure photographs of high-rise buildings in Tokyo. Symmetry enhances the effect 3. Gestures and movements
When shooting people at a slow shutter speed, moving characters become like ghosts, but buildings, lanterns, street signs remain in their places. In the pictures of the Russian photographer Alexei Titarenko, we see different cities inhabited by ghosts. Alexey's works are included in the collection of the State Russian Museum of St. Petersburg, as well as in the collections of more than 20 museums in the US and Europe.
Long exposure allows you to realize interesting ideas for portraits
Portrait photography with flash at slow shutter speed through glass Using flash at slow shutter speeds
And also using the flash at a slow shutter speed - great idea for an unusual portrait. When shooting motion pictures with flash, the flash time is much shorter than the shutter opening time. If the flash fires at the end, the moving subject remains sharp but leaves a faint trail of blur. You can experiment with plots and emotions.
4. Dance
Modern cameras allow the photographer to create amazing shots that capture the beauty of the dance. The light that highlights the figures of the dancers on a darkened stage, plus a slow shutter speed using a flash at the right moment, can show the viewer exactly how the action took place.
5. Carousels, swings and rides
Everything that moves along a certain trajectory. The beautifully illuminated attractions look especially impressive in the evening, when you can increase the shutter speed. Interesting shots are obtained both from the outside and “from the inside” of the carousel.
I am glad to welcome you again, dear reader of my blog. I'm in touch with you, Timur Mustaev. Today I want to touch upon another element of the exposition in more detail - exposure. Surely, you know that the camera has such a parameter. Surely you have heard of him? Many photographers often leave this setting to "autopilot", simply not knowing how to set it up.
Today I will tell you about shutter speed, how to manage it, I will give you a few historical facts, personal examples and tell you why it is generally needed.
Before proceeding, I would advise you to familiarize yourself with options such as . Since these parameters depend on each other, and make up the exposure.
So, let's begin.
Exposure is one of the most important parameters of a camera.
What it is? As the teacher of photography told me, the shutter speed of the camera is the amount of time for which the photosensitive element of the camera hits a certain amount of Sveta. In other words, this is a parameter that determines how long the light will hit the matrix. This statement is also relevant for film devices.
What is endurance for?
How can she help us? The first and most important thing is to get a high-quality image. With it, you can clearly photograph a running person or a speeding car, create beautiful drawings light and smear unnecessary details in the picture. Extracts have many applications, but they are classified very simply.
Classification.
So, the shutter speed of the camera is short and long. A short parameter is considered from 1/60 to 1/8000 seconds, while a long one is from 0.5 seconds to 30 seconds. The first view allows you to get an image almost instantly, which is beneficial to use in dynamic scenes. The second view is more convenient for getting a beautiful image, getting rid of unnecessary details and painting with light.
Speaking officially, there are many shutter speed values. Among camera manufacturers there is a standard according to which a fraction of a second is indicated in the parameter value (for example, 1/1000), but, due to inconvenient notation, the denominator is taken as an indicator, and the numerator is omitted, that is, just 1000. This designation is relevant for the parameter if it is less than a second, and if it is greater, the number of seconds is simply written.
However, no matter how wide the range of coverage allowed values, they weren't enough. Therefore, we created unique modes for adjusting shutter speed.
You can activate them far from every camera, and if there is an opportunity, then you can activate it by setting a special parameter on the mode dial.
This is B or Bulb. It allows the shutter to remain open while the shutter button is pressed. This can be handy for shooting "light painting".
An example from life.
In photography practice, our group was given several Canon 550D and Nikon D3100 devices to work with exposure time. On the first camera, I practiced the Freezelight technique, in Russian called light painting. It was decided to set the value to 30 seconds (the maximum for this device). The quality of the pictures is quite pleasing.
On the second Japanese, they decided to practice working with a super-short value. For comfortable work without a tripod, the parameter 1/1000 was used, written as 1000 in the camera interface.
In the end, I did not fail. Canon showed best quality shooting in low light with a slow shutter speed. Compared to Nikon, its footage was less "noisy". But with the "instant" shooting, the results surprised me. The pictures were hard to distinguish from each other, except that Canon showed better detail due to the larger number of pixels on the matrix.
Historical note on endurance.
As you know, the first cameras were far from modern ones in terms of the principle of taking a frame. Previously, there were no automated mechanisms that allow you to adjust the parameters of the camera. The setting in question was no exception. Because of this, it could be called a strongly “human-dependent” parameter, because it was the photographer who adjusted this setting.
It was carried out by opening and closing the camera lid, and the time for which the lid was removed is considered to be exposure. Often the parameter was calculated in minutes, since earlier the light sensitivity of the fixing layers was too low. Then long shooting was a necessary measure, and this problem could only be overcome with the invention of photographic film.
Since then, little has changed in the principles of operation of this mechanism. The most important of the innovations is the movement of the element covering the photosensitive mechanism inside the camera body. Initially, it was just an internal damper, but now these are special curtains controlled by a shutter mechanism.
In all devices, it works according to a roughly comparable scheme: while pressing the shutter button, the shutters are pulled apart for a previously set amount of time. The latter can be determined automatically or set by the user with the mode enabled ( S- on the Nikon cameras and TV- on Canon).
What depends on shutter speed besides the time of receiving light?
As a rule, during the included mode "P" - program mode, the aperture of the camera is fixed in a certain position. From this it follows that the lightness of the frame also depends on the time of shooting. Moreover, the shorter the capture time, the darker the frame. The exposure also depends on it, otherwise called the amount of illumination. It is determined by the product of shutter speed and illumination.
It is the parameter discussed today that can cause the so-called temporal parallax. The fact is that in old devices, the shutter curtains did not open the entire photosensitive layer at once. Opened in a certain part of the frame on set time. Because of this, while shooting a moving object, the latter could be distorted.
The dependence of this phenomenon is as follows: more difference between shutter speed and shutter time, the more noticeable the temporal parallax.
Exposure control - improve the quality of photos.
“How to adjust the shutter speed?”, you ask. This can be done in several ways at once. The first is to set the parameter “M” on the camera mode wheel to manual, and change the required parameter or set of parameters directly. You can also set the mode "A or Av" - shutter priority, in which, with a change in the aperture, the frame capture time will also change. It is possible to adjust and with the help of light sensitivity (ISO). It can be changed even in automatic mode.
On the same old cameras that did not abound large quantity electronic mechanisms, a special drum stood out to adjust the shutter speed. He cocked the camera shutter and held back the curtains. Thanks to this element, the film was simultaneously rewound and the shutter cocked, due to which, when descending, the opening curtain was ahead of the closing one. A gap was formed through which additional exposure of the frame passed.
It was the so-called "additional exposure", it could serve both positive and negative service. Due to incorrect settings, the picture could be overexposed, important details- lubricated. The most important thing here is to choose the right parameter, and here I can help you, except perhaps with advice: do not photograph dynamics at a slow shutter speed, and statics at too short a speed.
Advice. At fast shutter speeds, in dimly lit places, always remember to always use a tripod to avoid blurry shots!
Examples of the use of shutter speed by famous photographers.
Example 1. Photo by Joel Tjintjelaar.
In this shot, we can see what a slow shutter speed can be used for:
- First, look at the sky. It can be seen that it is heterogeneous, there are brighter zones, but at the same time, specific details of the clouds are not visible, and this gives the photograph the most expressiveness.
- Second, take a look at the water. It turned into an absolutely flat surface, without a single wave.
AT real life it is impossible to see such a phenomenon, it emerges only when shooting with long exposure.
Example 2
One of the most famous examples work with time, capturing light. Authorship, unfortunately, is not specified. Here we can see how shutter speed affects the clarity of the resulting frame. The first quarter shows an example, more or less of great importance. It is such a photograph among the masters that is considered the most successful shot of a waterfall, since unnecessary details are not shown here.
The most unfortunate shots will be considered from the second and third quarters. The pictures here turned out to be both blurry and not blurry at the same time. There are little things that should be visible, but due to blurring, it is very difficult to see them. The last frame can also be considered turned out. Sharpness and clarity is enough to consider all the little things.
Example 3 Sports photography by Ammar AL-Othman.
One of best examples using a short shutter speed. Taking long shots here was stupid: everything, including the scooter pilot, would have been blurry. Here, in clarity, only what is needed, without which the frame would not make sense. This image also characterizes instant photography as the main subspecies of sports photography.
I did not want to leave without attention, one very good and useful video course " Digital SLR for beginners 2.0". It goes into detail about getting great photos, especially if you're a beginner. Many practical examples to help you understand the essence of photography. This is the course I recommend to all my friends who are starting photography. And since you, the reader of my blog, then you are my friend, then this course will be useful for you.
Subscribe to the blog and you will learn a lot about the capabilities of your cameras and, perhaps, draw inspiration for creating new photo masterpieces. Until we meet again, friends.
All the best to you, Timur Mustaev.
While this word may seem unfamiliar and even intimidating to some, we encounter exposure every time we take a picture of something. because exposure is the total luminous flux that hits the matrix during the exposure time.
If the matrix got too little light, then such a frame will turn out to be too dark, that is, underexposed or underexposed. Here is an example of such a frame:
Comments, as they say, are unnecessary. The first desire that arises when viewing this photo is to lighten it up! But, trying to add brightness, we will inevitably encounter a loss of quality. In dark places (shadows), the matrix received such a small luminous flux that information about the color of these fragments is partially or completely absent.
When trying to brighten an underexposed image, we get a guaranteed distortion of shades in the shadows, as well as high level color noise.
On the contrary, if the matrix received too much luminous flux, then the photo turns out to be too light, that is, overexposed or overexposed. Overexposure is an even greater evil than underexposure. If an underexposed picture can somehow be corrected in Adobe Photoshop, then it is much more difficult to save an overexposed image, and in many cases it is completely impossible. With underlight, we have a lack of information about dark areas. However, the information is there. There is simply no information about the color in the overexposed area - the processing program perceives it simply as an absolutely white section of the picture. And no matter how perfect the image processing algorithms are, none of them will be able to "invent" those details that were lost during overexposure.
Below is an example of an overexposed image.
The picture shows that the hull of the yacht has lost all the details and has become just a white speck. As we will not try to darken it, the lost details will not return back.
These two examples show that when photographing, you need to somehow strike a balance between overexposure and underexposure, that is, ensure the correct exposure. In this case, the photo will be balanced in highlights and shadows and will look its best.
How to ensure the correct exposure?
The exposure is set by three parameters:
Excerpt
Diaphragm
ISO sensitivity
Excerpt- this is the time period when the camera shutter is open and the matrix receives a light flux. The longer the shutter speed, the more light flux the matrix receives, the brighter the photo is.
Diaphragm- this is a mechanical "pupil" of the lens, which can open and close, thereby changing the intensity of the light flux falling on the matrix. When the aperture is open (dilated pupil), the luminous flux is maximum, when the aperture is closed (constricted pupil), it is minimal.
ISO sensitivity- the degree of susceptibility of the matrix to light. Changing this parameter allows the matrix not to "blind" from daylight(for this you need to set low sensitivity) and do not suffer " night blindness"in a dark room and take pictures in it without a flash (for this you need to increase the sensitivity).
These three parameters set the exposure.
If we draw a parallel between these seemingly complex things and our everyday life I offer a very clear example. Suppose we have a glass and we need to fill it with tap water. This can be done in two ways - turn on the pressure more powerfully and fill the glass in 1 second, or draw water in a thin stream for a minute. In this case, a glass is a matrix cell, water is a luminous flux, a tap is a diaphragm (the wider the hole, the stronger flow). And the time it takes to fill the glass is exposure. But if we fail to fill the glass in the allotted time - the only way to comply with all the "formalities" is to reduce the volume of the glass. A glass twice as small will fill up twice as fast. Thus, the glass volume is the reciprocal of the sensitivity. Less volume (glass fills faster) - higher sensitivity (you can shoot with a faster shutter speed).
So, what needs to be done so that the glass is filled "up to the rim", that is, the photo is correctly exposed?
Exposure must be measured first
In modern cameras, all this trinity of parameters can be set automatically. In most cases, automation works flawlessly, so many do not even think about setting something up and changing something. But in a number of cases, the automation does not work correctly and we begin to look for the cause ... After reading the instructions for the camera, we find out that automatic metering operates according to one of several algorithms. Each of them is "sharpened" under different conditions lighting. Here are the main types of exposure metering algorithm...
- Integral (matrix) metering
- Partial and spot metering
- Center-weighted metering
What is the difference between them and which mode is better to use? Let's look at the table...
| Integral (matrix) metering | Partial, spot metering | Center-weighted metering | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Measurement area |  Exposure data is taken from the entire area of the matrix and averaged. Based on this "arithmetic mean", shutter speed and aperture are set. |  Exposure data is taken only from a small area in the center of the frame (with partial metering, the area is larger, with spot metering, the area is smaller). Illumination at the edges of the frame has no effect on exposure calculation |  Exposure data is taken from the entire frame, but the area in the center has the most weight. The closer a point is to the edge of the frame, the less of an effect it has on the final exposure. |
| When is the best time to apply |  The main mode for shooting when the illumination in the frame is more or less uniform and there are no objects that are strongly "knocked out" from the overall tone. |  When the key object in its illumination is very different from the general background and it must be well developed. An example is a portrait of a man in dark clothes against a dark background. |  As a rule, according to the result, the result differs little from the integral measurement. However, when shooting contrasting scenes more attention is given to the exposure of the central part of the frame. |
| When not to use |  If the brightness of a small object differs significantly from the brightness of the background, there is a risk that the object will either be overexposed or underexposed. In this case, it is better to use partial or spot metering. |  It is not known what got into the small measurement area - white snow or dark branches. The result is an almost unpredictable exposure level when shooting "motley" scenes. | There are no obvious restrictions, you need to look at the situation. It is important to remember that sometimes it is impossible to work out both light and dark areas at the same time. If the difference in illumination between objects is too large, then we use additional lighting(for portrait) or shooting in HDR (landscape). |
After measuring the exposure, the automatic device sets the exposure couple - shutter speed and aperture. Numbers appear in the camera viewfinder, for example:
This means that the shutter speed is 1/250 second, the aperture is 8. The device is ready to shoot, we just have to press the shutter button!
Exposure can be adjusted...
It happens that automatic metering is wrong and the photo has a slight overexposure or underexposure. In this case, you can correct the exposure metering and reshoot the scene so that the next frame is normally exposed. But here's the question - how to determine if there is an error in the exposure on the captured frame? Indeed, on a small LCD screen, often with less than perfect color reproduction, there is little to see! And here a wonderful function comes to our aid - viewing the histogram.
A histogram is a graph showing the distribution of brightness in a photograph.
Here is an example of a still image and its histogram:
In this case, you can see that the histogram "rests" on the left edge - this means that there are underexposed objects in the photo that look on the verge of blackness. At the same time, you can see that there is some free space to the right of the graph. To get rid of the underlight, let's try to correct the exposure by +1/3EV (this is equivalent to the fact that we increase the shutter speed "by 1 click of the wheel", that is, by 1/3 of a step).
To enter exposure compensation, we need to find a button on the camera with the following icon:
Keeping this button pressed, turn the control wheel, or press the joystick (different devices have different ways). The screen will display a slider that can be moved left or right:
If you move the slider to the right, the picture will be brighter (positive exposure compensation), if you move it to the left, it will be darker (negative exposure compensation).
Here is a variation of the previous shot taken with positive exposure compensation.
We see that the picture brightened a little, the shadows on it improved. The histogram moved slightly to the right. If you make a big correction, then the shadows will be worked out even better, but the clouds will be overexposed, that is, they will lose their shades and go white. In this case, the histogram will shift even more to the right and will be "cut off" from the side of the highlights. Thus, we derive an important rule:
Ideally, the histogram should not appear clipped either on the left or on the right. If the histogram is clipped on the left, there are underexposed areas in the photo and there is loss of information in the shadows. If the histogram is cropped on the right, then the photo is losing hues in the light areas.
Sometimes a situation arises when the histogram rests both to the right and to the left - in this case, the image loses details in the shadows and in the highlights at the same time.
Questions and tasks for self-control
- What types of metering do you have on your camera?
- Experiment with exposure metering modes. Which scenes are better obtained in the integral metering mode, which - in the spot or partial mode?
- Find out how your camera's exposure compensation function is enabled.
- Take pictures of the same scene with positive and negative exposure compensation, follow the changes in the histogram.
photo simulator
Practice setting up a "virtual" camera - set the shutter speed, aperture, ISO sensitivity and try to get clear photos.
Greetings to all amateur photographers! Today, in the "Theory of Photography" section, we will take a closer look at one of the components of the exposure, namely shutter speed, find out what it can be, what it affects in photography and what effects can be achieved if you adjust the settings correctly.
We also want to draw your attention to the fact that the material contained below may be useful when creating a photo for a project.
So, let's start studying.
A camera shutter is like a shutter that opens to allow the exposure of light to begin, then closes to complete it. As a result, the picture does not display a moment, but a certain interval of time. The term is used to describe this interval. "excerpt"(exposure time).
The shutter speed is calculated in fractions of a second: for example, 1/30 s, 1/60 s, 1/125 s, 1/250 s. Only the denominator is displayed on the screen of many cameras - “60”, “125”, “250”. Often, slow shutter speeds are displayed as a number with quotes - 0”8, 2”5. Also exists standard row excerpts. 1 , 1/ 2, 1/ 4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000 s . For the slowest shutter speeds, the camera has a "Bulb" (bulb) setting - the shutter is open as long as the shutter button is pressed.
short(1/250 sec and shorter) shutter speed seems to "freeze" any movement, and the photo is clear, without the slightest blur.
In general, shutter speeds around 1/250 - 1/500 are sufficient to capture human movement, but close-ups or extremely fast subjects can require both 1/1000 and 1/4000 of a second.
Fast moving cars or animals: 1/1000s;
Waves: 1/250s
Long shutter speed makes it possible to properly expose the frame, especially when there is not enough lighting - at dusk, at night. It also allows you to shoot many interesting stories. Since with a slow shutter speed there is a possibility of “shaking”, blurring, it is advisable to use stabilization if it is in the camera or lens. In such cases, a tripod will be a good helper. Stabilization should be turned off when the camera is mounted on a tripod.
Depending on what shutter speed we use when shooting, short or long, you can get completely different effects in the photo.
Whenever there is moving objects in the frame, the choice of shutter speed determines whether the movement will be frozen or cause blur. However, it is not possible to change the shutter speed by itself without affecting exposure or image quality.
1. When reducing exposure, you need:
Increase the ISO speed (possible side effect: visual noise in photo)
Close aperture (side effect: depth of field may decrease)
2. When increasing exposure, you need:
Decrease ISO speed (side effect: you can't do without a tripod)
Open aperture wider (side effect: reduced sharpness)
It is very good when the camera has a bulb mode. In this mode, you can manually set the time for which the shutter will be open. Bulb mode will be useful when night shooting celestial objects, in scientific photography, when a process is filmed, slowed down in time. If you shoot, for example, a night landscape with a starry sky on a moonless night with an exposure of several hours (with an average aperture value), then the image will show traces of the rotation of stars, arcs relative to the North Star. But again, you should be aware of the noise in digital cameras, especially at high ISO values.
To get the correct exposure in the picture, you need to take all this into account and select the values of three values (ISO, aperture, shutter speed) depending on each specific scene, situation.
What should be the exposure for different situations.. Consider examples.
Five classic camera shutter speeds:
1. Freeze motion, or shoot 1/250s or faster.
The faster the subject is moving, the faster the shutter speed should be. For example:
Fast moving cars or animals: 1/1000s;
Mountain bikes or running people: 1/500s;
Waves: 1/250s
It should be remembered that individual parts of the object can move very quickly. A prime example of this is a helicopter. The fuselage itself can be frozen at shutter speeds and 1/250, but even 1/2000 may not be enough for the blades. Or, for example, when photographing a girl waving her hair to freeze the ends of her hair, it is also necessary to use shutter speeds of the order of 1/1000 or even less, while the model itself is moving relatively slowly.
Using a fast shutter speed helps to get a fairly balanced shot, but makes the picture too static. Any movement in the frame will be frozen.
You can fix this by trying to slightly tilt the camera to get a more dynamic photo composition. But the best option- use the technique of shooting with wiring, which will be discussed later.
2. Shooting with wiring.
Shooting with "wiring" - a technique that gives the effect of movement in the picture, while the object is sharp against a blurry background.
And here endurance plays a very important role. It must be in the range from 1/15 to 1/250 s. If you shoot with faster shutter speeds, 1/500-1/1000, then the effect of movement will decrease or disappear altogether. Since a fast shutter speed will give the background and the object equally sharp. Compare these two photos.
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For example, some of the quantities most commonly used by photographers are:
Fast moving cars, motorcycles or birds: 1/125s;
Mountain biking close to camera: 1/60s;
Mountain biking, moving animals or human work: 1/30 s.
3. Creative blur - Shutter speed 1/15s to 1s.
For example, rapid current waterfall: 1/8 s; people walking near the shooting point; waves; slow water movement: 1/4 s.
In bright conditions (on a sunny day), it may be difficult to obtain the required shutter speed (below 1/8 sec), even by changing the aperture or at low ISO values. To reduce the amount of light, a Neutral Density (ND) filter is used, which is exactly what it is designed for. Also, don't forget the tripod.
The set shutter speed also affects the transmission of the weather in the picture. It is possible to convey rain in solid lines using shutter speeds of 1/4 s and longer. If you want to “freeze”, stop individual snowflakes in flight, set the shutter speed to 1/125 s.
Adding a flash to a photo with a blur lets you freeze some subjects, which means you can move the camera around for an artistic effect.
A slow shutter speed, combined with the movement of a small constant light source, allows you to add a graffiti effect to the image.
4. Photo with shutter speed from 1 s to 30 s.
There are processes that take long time, and shutter speeds up to 1 second are no longer enough. These processes differ not only in time, they differ in perception. At shutter speeds from 1 to 30 seconds, all processes that proceed quickly are erased in the frame, only static remains ... soft static. It feels like the world is frozen. Movement disappears again. Only if at shutter speeds of 1/1000 the movement disappears, but a person sees an object that could move, then at a 30 second shutter speed they do not remain. This effect can only be obtained when using a tripod.
Long exposure photography is one of my favorite things to do. This allows you to capture something that is different from 99% of the photos on the Internet, and also requires skills and suitable equipment.
To work with this type of photograph, you need to deliberately overestimate the exposure time. While fast shutter speeds capture the moment, slow shutter speeds blur motion, creating different effects depending on the subject.
At first, everything may seem complicated. Most frequently asked question, which arises for beginners: "Why do my long exposure photos come out white?" Fortunately, solving this problem is very easy. The first step is to get a better understanding of the exposure triangle. If you want to read in detail, click on the link, and within the framework of the article I will give a very short review. The exposure of a photo (that is, how bright or dark it is) is determined by three characteristics: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.
Shutter speed controls how long the shutter stays open. For most ordinary photographs, shutter speeds range from 1/60 to 1/500, and we (depending on the subject) will need values from 1/10 second to 5 seconds or even 20 minutes. (Many cameras can't shoot faster than 30 seconds without Bulb, so you'll have to use an external shutter button.) More light will reach the sensor, resulting in a brighter image. If the shutter is left open too long, the output can be just a white canvas. The first step in solving the problem is to adjust the other two vertices of the exposure triangle.
ISO adjusts the sensor's sensitivity to light. Although the technical side is difficult to explain, it is enough to know that higher ISO values mean a brighter picture. Therefore, when shooting with a slow shutter speed, try to set the minimum ISO. The threshold level of most cameras is 100. Some models can even work with ISO 64, and Fuji cameras do not allow you to select a value below 200.
The third face of the exposure triangle is the aperture. Its value is responsible for the diameter of the hole that transmits light. How more value aperture, the wider the aperture. However, it is known that the relative aperture of the lens is indicated in fractional form. So f/8 actually means 1/8. Thus, if aperture value k more, then the relative aperture becomes smaller, because 1/16 is several times smaller than 1/4. If your photos come out white when using slow shutter speeds, try making the aperture ratio narrower by setting a smaller aperture. A good starting point is f/16 and the lowest ISO. Also keep in mind that a smaller aperture means more sharpness. If you need a shallow depth of field, you will have to resort to some other methods.
Okay, you've followed these tips but still haven't gotten an answer to your question. If you're shooting at the lowest ISO and small aperture, and the pictures are still bright, you'll have to resort to one of the following options.
First, shorten your exposure. Not every frame takes 20 seconds to expose. The desired effect can be obtained with 1/2 or even 1/8 s. However, this does not work for every situation. Sometimes there is too much light in the frame, but if you look at the examples below, you can see that some of them were taken with relatively fast (for this type of shooting) shutter speed.
If too much light is the problem, find a way to cut it down. For example, just try to photograph the same landscape at a darker time of day. Instead of trying to shoot at noon, take it at sunset or even on a cloudy day. This is one of the reasons cloudy days are perfect for shooting waterfalls when you need to increase your shutter speed a bit.
In the end, there is a very useful tool for this kind of shooting - the neutral density filter. These are regular sunglasses for your lens. Different ND filters have different densities. My personal choice is the 10-stop filter, which allows you to increase the shutter speed by 10 stops. For general shooting in the afternoon, a shutter speed of 1/30 s, ISO 100 and f/16 is required. With this filter, I can take the same shot with a shutter speed of 30s. The most commonly produced are 6- and 3-stop filters. If you need one or two extra stops, you can use a round polarizer.
When you figured out how to shoot at slow shutter speeds and bought an ND filter, it opens up for you. great amount interesting ways take advantage of this. Here are some of my favorite types of photography.
dreamy ocean scenery
Have you seen photos of the coastline, the waves of which are turned into a mystical fog? While a fast shutter speed will stop the waves, a slow shutter speed will blur their movement. The choice of shutter speed depends on the amount of light, the frequency of the waves, and the depth of the water. A good starting point is ISO 100, f/16 and 15s.
lakes
Ripples in the water often ruin photos of lakes. This problem is easily solved by resorting to a slow shutter speed, which completely softens the surface. My ND filter has often saved me from water ripples or boring sunsets. Exposure here depends entirely on how strong the waves are. The picture was taken at ISO 200 (the minimum threshold for Fuji cameras), f/16 and a shutter speed of 90 s.
When taking the photo below, the water was much calmer, so I used a faster shutter speed. Here are the camera settings I chose: ISO 200, f/18, 5 sec. If you look closely, you can see another difficulty when working with slow shutter speeds - the tree on the left side has become blurry due to the wind.
waterfalls
I think it was waterfalls that initially inspired me to try long exposure photography. I looked endlessly at photographs of silky smooth waterfalls and really wanted to understand how it was done. A big plus is that when shooting waterfalls, you don’t need too long a shutter speed. But it is important to determine what part of the movement you want to convey. It's very easy to get a waterfall that doesn't have any context. Sometimes this is useful, but usually I still try to make the waterfall not completely blurry.
I wanted to keep most of the movement of Panther Creek Falls, so I set these settings: ISO 200, f/18, 1/8 sec.
Due to the darkness of this canyon, I had no choice, so I had to sacrifice the expressiveness of the waterfall and photograph it at ISO 800, f/11, 8s.
In the example below, I deliberately omitted sharpening to give the waterfall the appearance of a long silk cascade. Camera settings were: ISO 200, f/16, 5s.
streaks of light
Another one of my favorite examples. Light streaks are red or yellow/white lines that appear in a photo due to the headlights of passing cars. Here, the shutter speed is determined by how fast the cars are going. This is quite easy to do if a certain light source passes through the frame and you just need to calculate the time it takes for it to do so. However, when there are more cars and lights in the frame, things get more complicated. Below I have given some examples showing the camera settings.
Here it took a long exposure, as two streams of cars were moving in different directions. It was necessary to capture the end of one light source and the beginning of another. ISO 200, f/18, 15 sec.
When shooting the Brandenburg Gate, I was lucky because the flow of cars was moving at the same time. I took this photo at ISO 200, f/16 and 2.5s.
The photo below was not easy to take, as there are many lines of traffic in the frame that needed to be captured. ISO 200, f/16, 45 sec.
If you need more inspiration, there are other ways to work with long exposures. Search the internet for examples and see how you can get amazing clouds, how to work with camera wiring, etc.
