My personal favorite shooting method is long exposure. You can manipulate the camera in so many ways, resulting in dramatic photography.

Show me your favorite Long Exposure shot.

I totally agree, I love long exposure shooting. Here's a shot I took in Algonquin last fall. It's a series of 100 stacked 30 second exposures for the star trails. Also another 2 shots blended for the ambient light around the tent, and then another for the tent itself.

windbound for two days in the quetico on a solo trip.i had one of those mini tripods. this is the moon shine on rocks and lake. no exif data, sorry.

quote jwartman59: " windbound for two days in the quetico on a solo trip.i had one of those mini tripods. this is the moon shine on rocks and lake. no exif data, sorry."

Good call on b/w. Great shot.

I j ust joined the subforum and had to resurrect this old thread- Long exposures are my muse. I'm the guy stumbling around in the dark after everyone has gone to bed. I'm not that great at seeing/sensing light during the day, but have fun being creative at night. Always enjoy learning and practicing new ideas/techniques.

You might be interested in viewing some of the nightscapes here for ideas.

I enjoy both daytime and night time long exposure. I use the black card technique a fair amount as well. I'm pretty sure I used it on this one to hold back some of the light from the tarp area.



And I know I used it on the first photo thats in the Oct. Photo a day thread as well.

No black card technique on this one, just long exposure with a polarizer and 10 stop ND filter.

I've been considering getting a set of ND filters for shooting moving water and such, but I don't know much about them. What would you recommend to start with? Is there one or two different ones that could be 'universally' used or do you need to choose from a whole set for each type of situation?

quote muddyfeet: "I've been considering getting a set of ND filters for shooting moving water and such, but I don't know much about them. What would you recommend to start with? Is there one or two different ones that could be 'universally' used or do you need to choose from a whole set for each type of situation? "

My 6 stop filters sees probably the most use. I used to have a 3 stop and it rarely seemed like enough. My 10 stop sees a lot of use also and I'm no stranger to stacking the 6 & 10 for exposures that start getting into the 8-10 min range.

If I were starting from scratch I'd look at the Breakthrough Photography filters. I use the Lee filter system so I kinda need square filters but I may make an adaptor just so I can try the Breakthrough Photography filters. They're not cheap tho' and if you're just dipping your toe in the pool there will be plenty of 6 stop filters out there that are much cheaper. Breakthrough Photography

When it comes to ND filters I use a 3, a 6 and a 10 in the square format. I really like Formatt Hitech Firecrest filters but they are pricey. You might also want to consider a polarized filter if you want to shoot long exposure for moving water at any time of day besides near dawn or near sunset.
Here's my first try at dark sky exposure. I learned a lot. For my next series, which I shot in Algonquin a couple of weeks ago but still haven't processed, I shot multiple exposures for photo stacking, which should reduce the noise quite a bit. This one is just a single exposure 14mm, f/2.8, ISO 3200 at 25 sec.

Nice! I haven't tried the photo stacking for milky way shots yet, is it worth the trouble as far as reducing the noise goes? How many shots do you take?

quote redoleary: "Nice! I haven't tried the photo stacking for milky way shots yet, is it worth the trouble as far as reducing the noise goes? How many shots do you take?"

The difference between a stacked series and a single exposure shot at ISO 3200 is significant. Even after all the work I did in post there is still a lot of noise in that shot I did, particularly noticeable in the water. The recommendation is to shoot between 8 and 10 exposures, which is what I did for the Algonquin shoot. But I had a great opportunity. I shot the Milky Way under dark clear skies and got my 10 exposures. Then I left my camera set up and went and had a snooze in my tent for about 3 hours. When I woke up my foreground, 2 canoes on a beach, was lit up under moonlight. So then I dropped my ISO to 400, refocused for the foreground, upped my f-stop to f/8 and reshot for the foreground. It will be a complex post processing - first stacking for the Milky Way background and then blending that with the foreground under moonlight. I'll post it when I finally get the time to get it done (maybe I should say "if" :>)