Night and Low-light Photography Photo Workshop

Light Trails

The basics of photographing light trails are sim-

ple: Use a shutter speed long enough that the

lights in question turn from points of light into

trails as they move through the frame. There are

three different types of captures in this section:

the first is where the camera is stationary and the

subject is moving, the second is where the camera

moves along with the subject creating a back-

ground that seems to be made up of streaks of

light, and the third is to use the zoom on a lens

to create trails from a stationary light source.

Capturing traffic flow

Living in Southern California, one thing that I

can count on is that there will be traffic every

night. This means that I can capture the light

trails produced by the cars’ headlights and tail-

lights. The idea is pretty simple: Leave the shut-

ter open long enough that the camera records

the lights from the cars as they drive by.

compensation to take a frame that is underexposed
by one stop and a frame over exposed by one stop,
along with the frame that is properly exposed. It is
also a good idea to shoot in RAW mode so that
any color correction can be done using as much
information as possible.

ABOUT THIS PHOTO Using a shutter speed of 1 second ren-
dered the moving cars as streaks of light. Taken at 1 second, f/5, and
ISO 100.

8-4

Make sure that you stay safe when

taking these types of photos, as you

are shooting around moving cars.

note

To capture the light trails produced by traffic, you

need a good view of the traffic where you can set

up a tripod and stay safe. It is best to scout out the

locations during the daylight hours so that you

can see exactly what is around you. It takes a lit-

tle more imagination to picture the scene without

the headlights visible, but just watch the flow of

the traffic. Look for roads that lead to or away

from something so that the light trails created