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Long Exposure Photography Tips • Landscape Photography
• Wildlife Photography
BY KEVIN CHOI | 32 COMMENTS
LAST UPDATED ON AUGUST 2, 2023 • Portraiture
• Post-Processing
• Advanced Tutorials
Long exposure photography can produce stunning photos. Nighttime shots can
bring out unexpected detail and create amazing light effects. Daytime long
exposure can create images with haunting moods and ethereal imagery. None of
this is actually hard to achieve, but it does take a little thought and preparation. Make Every Hour
Here are some tips to ease you into long exposure photography. Golden Hour

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Table of Contents
1. Steady As She Goes PHOTOGRAPHY TUTORIALS

2. Research
3. Compose Your Picture
4. Plug the Leaks
5. Know the Light
PHOTOGRAPHY LANDSCAPE
6. Final Words BASICS PHOTOGRAPHY

1) Steady As She Goes

Vibration is the bane of long exposure. The slightest vibration will blur the
picture. Sometimes you can use a table or an improvised stand, but the best way WILDLIFE MACRO
PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOGRAPHY
to steady the camera for long exposure is a tripod. It keeps the camera far
steadier than you can hold it or support it on most surfaces. A remote shutter
release is also useful, though not as important as the tripod. You can use the
camera’s shutter delay so any vibration caused by pressing the shutter release
doesn’t show up in the shot when you start shooting long exposure. Eventually, COMPOSITION & BLACK & WHITE
CREATIVITY PHOTOGRAPHY
though, you will want a remote.

NIGHT SKY PORTRAIT

PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOGRAPHY

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
PHOTOGRAPHY VIDEOS

UNIQUE GIFT IDEAS

NIKON D700 + 24mm f/2.8 @ 24mm, ISO 100, 20/1, f/5.6

2) Research
You can just see a spot that looks promising and set up, but it is better to prepare
ahead of time. Once you know where you want to shoot take some time to walk
around the area and see how it looks. Find the best place to set up for the kind of
picture you want to shoot. If you plan to shoot during the day, check the weather
for the time you’re going to shoot. You will want a day that is partly cloudy with
wind to provide movement. If there is no wind and the clouds aren’t moving, the
shot may not look any different than a normal photo. SUBSCRIBE VIA EMAIL

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NIKON D700 + 24mm f/2.8 @ 24mm, ISO 1600, 30/1, f/2.8

3) Compose Your Picture

As exciting as the nifty effects you can create with long exposure are, it is still
important to pay attention to the things that are notable for their stability. Walls,
building, plants, whatever is in the photo that will not move during the exposure
is as important for the total effect of the shot as the motion. Compose the
picture, then figure out ways to improve it for long exposure.

4) Plug the Leaks

Bring along black tape and opaque material you can use if necessary to block
any light leaks. They could come from the viewfinder or elsewhere on the
camera. Long exposure photography is relatively new as a common photographic
method. Leaks that are too small to affect a normal shot can have strange effects
when the shutter stays open for minutes or hours.

NIKON D700 + 24mm f/2.8 @ 24mm, ISO 100, 3/1, f/13.0

5) Know the Light

Even at night there will usually be some kind of light besides the stars. It might
be the moon – and the quality of moonlight changes as the month goes by – or it
could be some man made light source like a town or a campground. A few short
test shots will help you understand how the ambient light will affect your picture.

6) Final Words
Long exposure photography is a great way to take a fresh look at the world you
photograph every day. It creates a sense of motion and mystery in photos that
isn’t possible in a normal photograph. It doesn’t require new lenses or special
cameras, so grab your equipment and take a long look at the world around you.

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FILED UNDER: PHOTOGRAPHY TUTORIALS

TAGGED WITH: GUEST POSTS, LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY, PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS, TIPS FOR BEGINNERS

About Kevin Choi

Kevin Choi is a freelance photographer who has a love for
landscape and wildlife, and the founder of CaptureTheMoment.
He has been carrying Nikon with him since 2008. Kevin is a man who never
stops dreaming and would wish the same to you.

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32 COMMENTS Newest

Beverley Howard
November 8, 2019 7:55 pm

I love your shot of the Thrombolites. I was lucky enough to visit here a couple months ago
but I didn’t know about this place and didn’t have have my filters with me at the time. It’s to
far from home to go back.

0 Reply

Morten
April 27, 2019 4:34 pm

dont know if this page is still active. I love the detailed explanation.
But what if you take a photo of the northern lights and a person in the same picture. A
northern light require a long exposure right? And a person have to move a little bit unless
she/he is a mannequin.

1 Reply

Vince
October 26, 2015 9:59 pm

Alfred, my guess about how he did the milky way photo is, that he shot the milkyway sky
shot, with no ‘Earth’ in the shot, then shot the lighthouse picture & joined them as layers in
photoshop.
But that’s just a guess.

0 Reply

Kevin Choi Author

Reply to Vince October 27, 2015 8:58 am

Hi Vince, I only use panorama for this shot. Star and the Earth are in the same frame.
Kevin

0 Reply

Alfred
September 1, 2015 2:09 pm

Hi Kevin,

Your milky way photo is amazing! How did you do a 30 second exposure without making the
light from the lighthouse too bright? Thanks!

0 Reply

Kevin Choi Author

Reply to Alfred October 27, 2015 8:57 am

Hi Alfred, If you use are in really dark location, this is not a concern. Also, the light from
the light house only flash once for about 30 second. That mean the light is only exposed
for very short time.
Kevin

0 Reply

SITKI
June 5, 2015 10:35 am

Çok faydalı bir makale. Teşekkürler..

0 Reply

Kafkiano
April 1, 2015 2:52 pm

Where are the tips ? : )

0 Reply

Mark Pitsilos
March 24, 2015 3:37 am

Can someone with astrophotography knowledge explain how come high ISOs are used in
astrophotography?
I’ve heard it’s used to amplify the light from the stars and render more stuff visible, yet I
don’t understand how come a long exposure does not suffice.

0 Reply

Aaron D. Priest
Reply to Mark Pitsilos March 24, 2015 6:38 am

Hi Mark! For most people it’s because the stars move due to the earth’s rotation. If you
have too long a shutter speed, you’ll get star trails instead of pin sharp stars. The longer
the focal length, the shorter the shutter speed must be. If you want star trails, a very
long exposure with low ISO will suffice (many people stack shorter exposures anyway for
a number of reasons that I could explain later), but if you want a clear Milky Way, a high
ISO with 10-30 second exposures is necessary with most lenses. I wrote about this
recently for Photography Life here: photographylife.com/photo…-milky-way

If you have a properly aligned and guided tracker, you can shoot as long a shutter speed
as you want and get sharp stars. Still, “shorter” exposures at higher ISO are often used
and then stacked because random noise can be better analyzed and removed over a
single long exposure where amp noise and sensor heat produces a more difficult type of
noise to remove. If you want the really long answer about read noise, signal to noise
ratio, dynamic range, etc. then this article might be of great interest to you!
www.clarkvision.com/artic…e.summary/

Regarding the merits of stacking multiple shorter exposures vs. one long exposure for
star trails, here is an article I wrote about that. It’s merely an opinion though, either
method produces great results: galleries.aaronpriestphoto.com/Artic…StarTrails

1 Reply

Marti
March 23, 2015 11:28 am

Hi, very nice post and picture. I wonder how it possible to have a picture like the second one,
20 sec during the day, with this opening withoud a ND filter ? Is it really so easy ?

once again, thanky for this article

Best regards

0 Reply

Arron
Reply to Marti March 23, 2015 5:28 pm

I don’t know about Kevin, but I managed to create blur in broad daylight without a ND
filter. This was shot with my Nikon D800E @ 24 mm, ISO 100, 30 sec, f/13:

0 Reply

milagroful
Reply to Arron March 30, 2015 6:52 am

That would explain why the sky has no colour at all. ND filter would definitely have
improved that shot.

0 Reply

Arron
Reply to milagroful March 31, 2015 7:51 am

Quite right, but it was actually overcast at that moment. There are some
minor hints of blue sky there; the sun was appearing then disappearing
behind clouds every couple of minutes that day.

0 Reply

Kevin Choi
Reply to Marti March 26, 2015 9:02 am

If you want to expose 20 sec during the day, you need at least a 6 stops ND or even a 10
stops ND. You can learn more about it on my blog.

0 Reply

Tony Prower
Reply to Kevin Choi April 27, 2019 10:09 am

I find a 6 stop ND to be the most useful. With some iso changes and reasonable
apertures, my 6 stops works all the time the sun is up.

0 Reply

William Dyer
March 23, 2015 9:02 am

Use of long exposures via neutral density filters can really help by getting rid of people in
architectural photos, if they are unwanted. I once took a 30 second exposure at a university
during Parents Day at midday; shooting from the roof of one building to capture other
buildings on the quad. No one remained in place long enough to register on the image.

0 Reply

milagroful
Reply to William Dyer March 30, 2015 6:52 am

Sounds interesting I’ll have to try that

0 Reply

Mark
March 23, 2015 6:29 am

Nicely done!

0 Reply

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