It can be a really fun thing to experiment with slow shutter speeds. This picture was taken on my recent trip to Maui and I wanted to talk you all through how it was done.
Im not sure what the equivalent shutter speed of our eyes are (I used to at some point, I want to say ~250-300 fps if anyone knows please tell me) but I do know that it isnt nearly as fast as our ability to hear due to the way signals are transformed into a nerve impulse. Eyes require the conversion of a chemical intermediary while hearing is detected by the opening of an ion channel- just a side note)
In any event, when you take a camera and leave the shutter open for a prolonged period of time, it allows the sensor to “soak” in ambient light, in the case of this photo, over a period of 10 seconds..
Find your night time subject. Remember, you may not be able to clearly see what you are shooting. When I shot these palms I could only see the faint glimmers of the highlights here and there.
You will need a tripod and to shoot in shutter priority mode as we are most concerned with dialing in a long exposure. Set your camera to “timer” because you do not want the camera to shake/vibrate at all when you push the shutter button down. Doing so would cause blur. Once you have composed it, press the shutter button and take a few steps back to avoid contact or any vibrations of movement that might effect the picture.
Settings:
Shutter Speed: 10 Seconds
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO 400
Auto White Balance
Drive: 10 second timer
Focus: Auto
Quality: RAW (allows you to tweak exposure and other settings to taste)
very nice. very nice…i love the clouds.
what’s that green spot on the bottom right corner?
Hey Micheal did some research on the human eye fps, but there are alot of ideas out there that the eye cannot be measured in fps and if it really was calculated it would be like close to a 1000fps.
On another note how much effects were added to this shot to enhance it , if any?
Thanks!
All effects were done in RAW just using the sliders to taste. Green spot in corner is lens flare from moon, you can track it in a line with the other lens flares. Thanks Gary- I knew there is an equivalent rating, I couldnt remember what it was. Here is a trivia question for you: What is the equivalent focal length of the human eye?
50 mm Prime.
Gorgeous shot! At first, I thought it was done as HDR. Oh, and on an unrelated note, here’s a follow-up to a recent question I posted about how heavy our camera rigs are. I found this interesting idea from hotshot photographer Joe McNally on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDsx3-FWfwk. He actually cradles the camera in his shoulder/chest area, which (once you get used to it) takes a lot of the weight off of one’s hand and wrist. Will take some getting used to, but it could be a lifesaver on those long shoots.