The Story of Long Exposure

I clearly remember my first long exposure picture. I was using a simple point and shoot digital camera - Fujifilm A170 and I was shooting the Bandra-Worli sea link in Mumbai. The exposure was for 8 seconds and the result made be really happy. I could see the sea link and some buildings in the night. A picture which could not be taken by my the then cell phone. I was happy. 

Fujifilm A170

I've since improved the long exposure pictures that I've taken. But this one remains close to my heart. 

Why should you take long exposure images?

There will be times where lighting conditions are very less for the camera to capture normally. Even if we bump the ISO it might not give us the results properly. I will try and explain this through some of my images. 

Nikon D7100, Tokina 11-16, 11 mm, f/2.8, 30 s, ISO 1250

This picture is of the Siswan Dam reservoir in Punjab and this was taken in complete darkness at 1 am. Check for yourself, the stars are visible and they only come out at night. 

Nikon D3000, 18-55 kit lens, 22 mm, f/3.8, 30 s, ISO 400

This picture was taken again in Mumbai and was part of my initial attempts at light painting. Basically you open the camera shutter for a long duration in a completely dark room. Use a small light source and paint or write something. Normally It's also called LED painting because most of the lights used now are LED. Also the person holding the umbrella is me. The camera was on a timer kept on a table and for some reason kept the tripod next to me.

Nikon D7100, f/1.8, 50 mm, 30 s, ISO 1250

This is a long exposure shot somewhere in Haryana. It's a small stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere. If you're on the Baddi-Kurali road and travelling towards Baddi, this is about a kilometer after where Punjab ends. If you continue driving then Himachal Pradesh is about 10 minutes. 

Here I've set the focus to infinity and you can see the stars. For this I had kept the camera on my car as I was not carrying my tripod that night. Notice since the focus is set to infinity the tree is blurred. 

The next picture here is at the same location but different angle. The focus is now set at the tree. The stars are all out of focus and have provided me with a beautiful bokeh as a backdrop. I love this picture. 

Nikon D7100, f/1.8, 50 mm, 30 s, ISO 1250

Long exposure provides more time to the sensor to gather light. The longer you keep it open the more details it will gather. However there is still a limit to how long you can open the shutter. It will depend on your camera, the sensor it uses to the settings set by you. I could've easily ruined the stars with an even longer exposure. The earth continues to spin and after sometime the stars would've produced a trail. The image where stars are clear, it had started to - look carefully. It can also create ghost images and blurred lines. More on this I will write on another day. Long exposure can surprise you and with good cellphone cameras like the Pixel 3 and above you can carryout even better astro photography. 

The last picture here is of the Milky Way galaxy. It's not very clear or in focus here. But it's there. 

Milky Way above Shimla

Have a great time!

Kunal