10

CHAPTER
NIGHT AND LOW-LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY / Low-Light Landscapes

set, and most of the light was provided by street

lights on the pier. The exposure time was 4 min-

utes, and that allowed for the water to turn from

surf to silky smooth.

Dealing with vibration

The longer that you have the shutter open, the

more likely it is that the camera can move during

the exposure and ruin the image. To avoid this,

the first thing to do is to make sure that the cam-

era is securely locked into a tripod that can sup-

port the camera and lens weight properly. A

smaller tripod might look like it is holding the

weight just fine, but over time it might not be

holding the camera and lens as steady as you

Long Exposures

When you leave the shutter open for a long
period of time, you are compressing everything
that happens into a single image. This means that
items that move through the frame relatively
quickly are not recorded, while things that are
usually hidden by shadows can be seen. This is
because the longer the shutter is open, the more
light it collects. Two of the coolest effects that
you can create with long shutter speeds are get-
ting water to look silky smooth and turning night
into day. First, it’s important to get the sharpest
image possible during these long exposures, so
reducing any movement is imperative. The photo
in Figure 10-8 was taken well after the sun had

ABOUT THIS PHOTO Setting up a tripod under the pier and exposing for 4 minutes revealed the details in the pier and turned the water to a
flat, smooth expanse. The image then had the color corrected for the orange glow of the lights. Taken at 4 minutes, f/16, and ISO 200.

10-8