Work the Exposure 2

Last time i discussed an interesting effect you can achieve by using manual shutter speeds with your camera.

This time i will discuss another, veeery well known, "trick" you can do by manually adjusting how long your shot is exposed to light and it is sometimes known as "light streaks".

It usually works at night when the cars lights are very bright in relation to the background. You set your camera's shutter speed to something like 15-30 seconds and then adjust the ISO settings and the F stop to a value that will give you a well exposed background (depends on the shutter speed you set). A tripod is essential for this because you will be exposing for several seconds and the slightest movement will create blurry effects on the shot.

The result is very well known as you can see:

Work the Exposure

One of the very cool things you can do with your camera has to do with exposing the shot to your liking. Manual exposure is a very power tool, a tool with which you can achieve a variety of results. This post is about one of them.

You are in a dark place and you see something very interesting that you want to photograph. But its VERY dark. Very very dark. in fact it's THIS dark:

(Note: this is the actual luminosity my eyes saw when i took this picture. Also note that there is NOTHING interesting in this picture :P)

No problem. You set your trusted tripod (if you have one) and set the ISO level at a high level (1600 in this case). Then you set manual shutter speed. You know, the one were you have to keep your finger on the button for as long as you want your shot to be exposed. And you keep it there for a long time. (In this case 358.8 seconds). The result is similar to a shot taken in the afternoon. (These shots were taken at 4 am).


Pretty amazing no? I actually wanted to achieve a look similar to a shot taken at noon but my finger got tired :D It helps if you have a remote control. (Mental note: need to buy one of those)

This was the first interesting effect you can achieve with adjusting the exposure manually. Other will follow so stay tuned.