Long exposure to remove people

Good evening,

I am sure that most of those who are reading this have been in a situation where you wanted to photograph something striking, amazing, beautiful, or awe inspiring but have been thwarted by a plethora of people milling about so were resigned to taking a ho hum picture with people blocking parts of the subject. There is a way around this that can work for some of these situations.

The fountain in Downtown Disney near the tram to the parking garage. 1/30th second exposure.

Notice the dozens of people walking around, if I would have stepped back to get the whole fountain in the image I would have added quite a few people in the front of the image too.

A 15 second exposure taken within a minute of the other image.

The couple of people who can still be seen were more or less standing around. With this technique busy locations can be made to appear empty. For these images it was getting late in the day and it was overcast if I recall correctly. This won’t work it all situations, it is another reason to carry ND filters around though. All one needs is a steady surface and some patience. So go out and make those busy places look deserted.

Scott W Gonzalez

Star Trails

Good afternoon,

Today it is onto star trails which are very different from getting the stars to be static. Similarities are; needing a sturdy tripod, know what you are trying to capture, a foreground interest can make a picture, and planning helps.

Now the differences; a high ISO is not needed, a large aperture is not as important, and a remote release is important. After about 15 seconds or so the stars can be seen as more than a dot. With trails we want that so that is why ISO and a large aperture aren't as big of a deal. 

Here is a stack of 30 second exposures taken back to back from a balcony in Lake Tahoe. Pointed North - Northeast. Around 140 images put together for a total of a 70 minutes exposure, each photo was 30 seconds each, 28mm, f2.8, 200 iso.

So there are 2 ways to go about star trails. Either taking a bunch or photos and stacking them afterward like above. The benefits are; less noise, if frames have something unwanted (planes, satellites, UFOs, etc) they can be left out. The down side it is time consuming in post.

Below is the other way which is to keep the shutter open for a really long time. I have heard of all night exposures. Personally I have gone with a couple of hours at most with good results. The benefits are it has more of a set it and forget it approach, and post processing is just a couple of images (if combining exposures of a separate foreground and background). The bad part is if something goes across the frame it is a pain if even possible to remove it and there could be more noise from the long exposure.

This was taken in Death Valley, I light painted the tree. I was trying to capture some meteors in the shot and failed. This was a 29 minute single exposure. 28mm, f5.6, 1759 seconds, 400 iso.

Experiment and see which you prefer. There are programs that are designed to make the stacking process easier, I just use photoshop because I don't take this type of image often. So find a night sky, grab your tripod, shutter release, camera then go out and shoot.

~Scott

Slowing Down

Good Evening,

So today we are going to slow down a bit. In this day and age getting things done quickly has become the norm. 10 frames per second, faster focusing, live view. Sometimes it is better to slow down and think about what we are taking a picture of. Contemplate the image we want to create or capture, scan the frame to see if there are any elements that are not wanted, and see if the elements that are there serve a purpose. Would a different angle provide a better image? Would better lighting? Would waiting for people to clear the frame help or would waiting for a person to walk into the frame make the image stand out?

Back in the days of film every image cost money, it took time to process and get back. People would take their time with their pictures because of these things. With digital we have a tendency to take lots of images without a thought or care then delete the ones we don't like.

One way that we can slow down is by using a tripod. It takes a little time to set up so we don't have a choice but to slow down there. Once it is set up it is in most of our natures to not want to put it away until we have the picture that we want that is close to perfect for us. Now we don't need a tripod to slow down it is just a helpful tool. Buy the sturdiest tripod that one can afford. A good one can last years possibly even decades. Grab a camera, take your time, go out and shoot.

~Scott