Photo Tutorial: Night Long Exposure

Night time photography has, hands down, been my hardest obstacle in my work. How can you get a clear shot without long exposure? How can you avoid flash? If I expose for too long will my photos have too much noise? Why are lights so wonky at night versus during the day? Despite the hardship, you can get some pretty awesome "ghosty" eerie pictures and capture light so beautifully using the approach.

So here's a few tips and tricks I have learned through my struggles using a few stills for a film project that I shot last week.

What you will need:

• a camera (duh)
• a remote shutter
• tripod (or something similar that will keep your camera in place)

What's a remote shutter?
Basically it's a button that can be connected to your camera that allows you stand away from your camera while the photograph is being taken. If you're using a film camera, they are usually attached right to the shutter button, but with more recent cameras (and digital) there are inner sensors for cordless buttons (which are SO cool!) and then there are ones like the one I used for this, which has a headphone-like connector. These things tend to be super cheap, I think I got both a sensor one and a corded one for under $20?

One note: before purchasing a sensor, make sure it works with your model of the camera. Like, my sensor remote, while it works with my T2i, will not work with the Mark II.

Step One: Find your Subject
You don't want a place that is absolutely pitch black -- you can do it, your camera WILL find any light in the pitch black room, but it will often drain your camera battery to have the shutter open for so long. Find a place that has a good amount of glowing light, or set up flashlights under a chair, to highlight something specific.

Step Two: Setup and Focus
Once you pick your spot, set up your camera on the tripod and get as much light on it first. I chose my bed, because between the city light pollution and the full moon, it was CRAZY BRIGHT in my room, despite it being 11-12 at night. But how do you know if you're focused if you rely on auto and it can't see anything in the dark? This was always my issue, and one that I give credit to night photographers for -- you have to be able to FOCUS during the day, and then shoot at night.

That awkward moment when your "focused" picture is the out of focus one... oops!

I refocused, I swear!

Step Three: Decide your your Aperture and Shutter Speed

If your camera has a BULB function, you're going to want that. I'm Canon-based, so you can figure that out by putting your camera on the "manual" setting, and scrolling your shutter speed all the way to longest it can go -- the last stop will just say "BULB." Most film and digital will have a similar function that allows you control the shutter speed to as long as you want. So here's some tips about aperture: The higher your f-stop, the less light will come it. It's just like camera basics. Since f stop is basically is used for motion, at this point it becomes obsolete because you're going to capture all the motion blurrily (is that a word?) anyways!

Step 4: Take your shot!

You've set up, you've focused. Plug in your remote shutter. I must admit that you can do this without one, but even the movement of your finger on the button will create blur. Now shut off all the lights you want and play around. Take a photo at 30 seconds, and then one at 2 minutes  (if you have a digital camera, this will give you good idea in how much light is coming into the camera at certain intervals. Remember my bedroom lit?

As you can see, all the light in this picture is almost being bled into the picture over time. And I'm ghostly because of the time it took me to crawl back into bed. You get the idea, right?

Here's some more from that same night:

 

Did you find this helpful? What else would you like a tutorial on?

I really want to know!