Long exposure photography technique

I would say long exposure is one of my favourite technique. In fact, that was the whole reason for me to give photography a try. Couple months ago, we went to Yosemite to observe moonbow. I wont go into the detail of that but you can click on that link and read it on wiki. My friend used his camera to take the picture of the moonbow at the bottom of Yosemite waterfall; the picture looked phenomenal to me at the time. The sky was blue, the waterfall was silky white; and the trees were amazingly green (view this picture at trieuvan). I found this surprising because we were in the middle of Yosemite valley at 2 AM in the morning and the only light source we had at the time was the moon.

After many months debating on whether i should buy a camera or not, finally i got one. I bought it from the same friend i mentioned above. With all the excitement, I took it out for some night photography. As you expected, It was a miserable failure. My pictures were blurry. The detail wasn't sharp enough. And most of them were crooked.

Here are the bad example so you can learn my from my mistake:

- Over exposed:

- Shaky condition:

So I asked around, researched on the net and I finally had a good shot. Here are a list of things you need to prepare for a good night shot. Please keep in mind that i just started a week ago, so im not quite the expert yet. Feel free to correct my technique, pointing out thing that I've missed.

Things you will need:

• Tripod ( the sturdier, the better)


• A camera with long exposure mode (any thing from 10 sec or more will do)


• An awesome place to take picture at.


• A weapon of some sort to protect your camera, and yourself of course, in case someone tries to rob you ..... jk ... well lets just change point #3 to "An awesome and safe place".

Step for an awesome picture:

• Find a spot where the ground is less likely to shake, and im not talking about earthquake here. If you take a picture of a pier dock, it will shake a little. And that is bad enough to ruin your picture. Sometime wind will screw it up too.


• Set up your tripod. Aim your camera at the view you want to take the picture.


• Choose a shutter speed depends on how dark your place is.


• Set your ISO to low. I usually put it at 100 ISO. Well, how low you should set your ISO is debatable. If you plan to set your shutter speed higher , the lower your ISO should be to avoid over exposure. Also, if the place you take the picture at is shaky, or windy. It might be helpful to set ISO higher and lower shutter speed. This will help a little , it doesnt greatly improve the quality of the picture in my experience.


• Choose either Manual Focus , or Automatic Focus if you dont really trust your eyes. Sometime you will need to choose manual focus because the camera cant focus in AF mode when it is too dark. I feel like im missing out something in this point. So please help me out if you have some good tips.


• Choose Aperature value. Aperature will allow how much light go into the lens, usually i set it at F7.1 - 11. Higher value means lower amount of light, which also means you might want to set the shutter speed higher. Adjust this value accordingly.


• Click, wait, then check out your picture. Adjust the shutter speed, ISO, or aperature value according to your satisfaction with the picture. If too bright, you might want to lower ISO, or have shorter exposure. If the picture is too blurry, set your aperature value higher (lower amount of light gets in -> more detailed picture). If the blur looks like it's because of the shaky ground, then you might want to find another spot, or hang something heavy at the bottom of your tripod.

Here is the picture of the Golden Gate at night. I took this picture with F.11 , ISO 100, 30 sec exposure.

I hope these are good tips, and please feel free to correct me and share your own technique/tips.

Hoang