Topic: Fun with Timed Exposures

I attended a friend's 19th birthday at The Spy Lounge, a nightclub here in Melbourne. I took alot of photos of him that night, and took the opportunity to do a time-x shot with his very nice 4mp camera.

http://members.ii.net/~skaarjj/20040508-0009.JPG

What do you think?

Nice! How did you steady the camera? I've been trying something along similar lines myself because I like the slightly blurred look. I prefer to have the back ground about how you have it but the focus (person or whatever) to be clearer; tripod is too steady and hands are too shakey! I'm looking for something similar to the effect you get with macro DOF but obviously on a larger scale; if only it was anywhere near as easy done as said.

I think it's too blurred and it sort of lacks a motive.
You need a tripod to take timed exposures.
For nightclubs, I think that using a high ISO and depending on the available lights, you can do without tripod and flash.
Anyway, it's just my 0.02.

Tripod's a little hard to bring with you to a nightclub like that

And there's no flash there at all...flash is an impossible thing in a long-exposure shot.

Meanwhile, I am just beginning at this, and I like that shot...promises of things to come

oh, and lan, the way I did that was kida with an organic bipod. I held the camera in both hands and rested my elbows on the table in front of me. Didn't turn out as badly as it could have.

Skaarjj, the first shot will set the scene and the second will show you where I'm headed, but I'm trying to get the people clearer. I was hoping that the timing would enable me the get the movement of the lights but that the darker people wouldn't blur so much.

shot 1
shot 2

quote:

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...flash is an impossible thing in a long-exposure shot.

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Not true; it's called slow-sync flash. It's used to properly expose the background, while also illuminating the foreground subject.

The flash fires when the shutter opens, but the shutter stays open long enough to properly expose the background, which can be several seconds. (This is called first-curtain sync. If the flash fires at the end of the exposure, just before the shutter closes, it's second-curtain sync, which can be used for a different effect.)

If the camera or the background moves during the exposure, the background will blur, but the foreground subject will appear frozen. (If the foreground subject is somewhat lit to begin with, it will also leave a blur around the frozen flash image, giving the impression of motion.)

However, with a simple long-exposure shot like lan is trying, everything will always blur. You can't move the camera and have parts blurred and parts not. The darker areas appear less blurred simply because brighter areas are more readily exposed, having a longer impact on the image.

I'll see if I can create some examples later tonight.

Thanks Wes, I look forward to your examples as I really like the effect. Well, I think I will, as I have yet to achieve the exact effect I have in mind

[aside] Skaarjj, sorry to sort of hijack your post but it all seems kinda related[/aside]

(Edited by lan on 05-13-2004 07:09)

This is a shot that took 4-5 seconds, using a tripod. Obviously, no flash was used. I like this dawn-shot a lot. Note the guy, in the bottom right corner totally blurred. He was a guy that was talking to the celular phone while I was taking the picture from the balcony of my apartment.

Viol, nice shot; sure looks like a great location where you live.

(Edited by lan on 05-16-2004 01:55)

Searching !! Language barrier! Inmate to shed some light on the top photo here. Looks like essentially just a gallery with no technical information.
BTW Wes, any chance to do those shots yet

(Edited by lan on 06-02-2004 00:14)

Oh yeah, I need to get to that, don't I?

No panic, Wes. I just thought it might be like a few piccies I take for something specific; you get side tracked and then 6 mths later you wonder "? what's in this odd folder - don't remember this!"

OK, so I finally pulled together a few minutes to take some flash examples. My assistant Beaker will help me demonstrate.

I've set up a situation in which my subject is backlit. Or more accurately, the background is lit and my subject is not. Taken without a flash, the camera exposes for the background and the subject is left in silhouette.



Next, I turn on the flash. By default, the flash and the shutter work together to emit and capture enough light to properly expose the subject.

Of course, since the shutter stays open only long enough to capture the light of the flash, the background isn't properly exposed.



This time, I tell the camera I want to use slow-sync flash. (With my 10D, I can do this by switching to Av, or aperture-priority, mode.)

The shutter opens, the flash emits enough light to illuminate the subject properly, and the shutter remains open until the background is exposed properly, as well.



Up until now, I've had the camera on a tripod. This time, I hand-hold the camera and use slow-sync flash as I did before. I even move the camera deliberately for effect.

As before, the shutter opens, the flash illuminates the subject, and the shutter remains open to expose the background. And since the exposure time is a bit lengthy, the movement of the camera is revealed in the background's motion blur. (The same thing would happen, of course, if the camera were still and the background itself were moving. Like headlights of moving cars, for instance, or a tree blowing in the wind under a streetlight.)



Any questions?

Yeaaah that's great Wes. Many thanks for taking the time to put that together; much appreciated. I promise to put some extra effort into learning how to use that feature of my camera. My wife gave me a beautiful Canon D30 camera for my birthday last year (second hand or I would have fainted at the extravagance) but, after nearly a year, I'm still overwhelmed by it's many features I've always been of the point and shoot "if you take a thousand photo's one of them's bound to be OK" school; 50 years of that and I now have thousands and very little to show for it! Even the mention of f stops sends me into mild trauma, and reading and re-reading the manual throws up more questions than it answers. I know you're busy - I do follow your exploits and your site- and I much appreciate your assistance. "Cheers" to Beaker too.

Fellow inmates, correct me if I'm heading in the wrong direction, but I figure that if I f** around with things like this, the practical application of these features will help me to understand what my camera can do.

Oh. I did a pic that fits where this thread is going just the other night. Long exposure and fill flash.. heh. This was taken in the dark of night btw, notice the lights are on inside. You can also see a little bit of shadow caused by a street light on the side of the house. [pic]

19mm and something like 15 seconds at f4.5 I think. There was a lot of trial and error. Spent about two hours getting this shot.

Nice mini tut Wes.

Some great shots there cy; I especially like #12.
I'm waiting for our wet season to start this year because Darwin has one of the highest lightening strike rates in the world. However I suspect I won't have much luck without a "manual" release to set bulb exposures. For my camera that is electronic and very pricey - I'm trying to find another way but no luck so far.

Thanks Ian. I have the expensive release but rarely use bulb exposures with digital because longer exposures mean more noise. So, with this sort of thing I try to use the shortest exposure I can get away with. In this case I used a manual setting.. found an aperture that the average lightning strike showed up well with and then balanced the shutter to expose the photo for the lights inside. After that it was just a matter of waiting for nature to cooperate with the plan.

^cy Ok so let me try and get this straight because tomorrow is our Territory day - lots of fireworks; 1) set a manual exposure of ?1sec, 2) manual aperture ? wide as feasable then 3) trigger the shutter using the normal button release. I'll use the tripod and gently on the button should do it hey? Any slips and I'll have to wait 'til New Years

Ya.. fireworks. I usually shoot with a mild tele at f2.8 (ISO 100). I do generally use the bulb feature for fireworks because you can time it best that way by opening the shutter just before the firwork goes off and closing it as it fades away. Pushing the button.. I'd say a second or two should do. You should be able to get a good idea of how long you want the shutter open when you're there. If ya wanna get fancy you can try silhoutting people, trees and stuff. Look for the ones that hold still alot and have a clear view of the show in front of them.

Yeah, I luv 'em - I'll give it a bash tonight. It'll be a bit hit and miss because I find it hard enough to adjust my camera in the daylight, let alone at night with a torch ( or probably "flashlight' for you ).

Man, you won't believe it!! I went to get my manual out to set the camera up and it's GONE!
I took it out of the case to charge the battery earlier and the manual was near the recycling paper and they picked it up, Gone gone.

(Edited by lan on 07-01-2004 08:38)

=> Wes and cy Yeeeah, thanks guys, was a success but too tired now; I had to fire up to view the results but will post a few tomorrow to get the US crew in the mood for July 4!

(Edited by lan on 07-01-2004 14:49)

Thanks to all my helpers from the Asylum, especially cyoung, Beaker and his trusty landlord

Some red, white and blue for the Stateside inmates this July 4.



This worked out OK with the boats in the harbour.



cy, I had a go shooting though the palms but I should have maybe tried with the flash as well - a la Wes.



A bit longer exposure/some convenient Roman Candles helped for a nice effect - bit bumpy on the button though!



Setting the palms on fire caused a bit of a stir - not I of course; sheer coincidence we had to vacate as the fire brigade turned up.



(Edited by lan on 07-04-2004 09:35)