Silky smooth and sharp streaks: 3 more tips for emotive long exposures

This is part two of a two part series on creative use of shutter speed. See part one, from last week, here. 

Use burst mode to capture the perfect frame

This technique—which is helpful when the moment you’re trying to capture is fleeting—is a recent addition to my photography toolkit.

When it came to seascape long exposures, I used to take one frame (maybe two) per incoming wave. But my success rate was too low. I’d walk away from a 30-minute sunrise shoot with perhaps three decent water shots to select from.

Even with a remote shutter, my timing was either too early so I’d miss the strongest flow, or I’d take the frame too late and miss the peak of the energy and motion.

To overcome this—and bolster your success rate—set your camera to continuous burst mode and connect a remote shutter. A low-to-medium frame rate will be fine for most scenes. But if the waves are striking a cliff or sea stack with force, a more rapid frame rate will ensure you capture the precise moment of impact.

When it’s showtime, simply hold down the shutter button to capture several frames of that one wave as it moves through your composition. Then you can sort through your files at home and select the photo with your favourite flow.

(It goes without saying: You’ll quickly fill your SD card with this rapid-fire technique. But if doing so enables you to walk away with the perfect frame? That’s a fair trade-off in my books.)

Consider the ambient light—and adjust your settings

Long exposures, by definition, leave the shutter open for longer which lets more light into your camera’s sensor. So you need to be mindful not to overexpose your photos—particularly during the day when it’s bright.

So when I capture long exposures that include the sky, I’ll shoot during sunrise and sunset to limit the amount of ambient light in the scene.

For a daybreak seascape, you should be able to capture your foreground rocks and water with settings around ISO 100, f/11 and 1/4 second. Then you can take a faster, darker frame for the brighter sky.

But what if you want to capture a waterfall during a daytime hike?

You might be able to avoid overexposing your scene with ISO 100, f/22 and 1/4 second. But as a trade-off, using a narrow aperture of f/22 will degrade the sharpness of your image—which isn’t ideal.

My recommendation is to shoot waterfall and river scenes on an overcast day during the early morning or late afternoon. In these conditions, you should be able to use an aperture of f/14 and still retain a sharp image.

One last tip on exposure settings. The white streaks in waterfalls often become strikingly bright—particularly in contrast to darker forest or gully surroundings.

To counter this, I’ll deliberately underexpose the photo (by referencing the histogram) by around one stop. Then I can raise the surrounding shadows in Lightroom without blowing out the white water highlights.

Mix up your shutter speeds

Shooting on location, under fleeting light, you won’t have time to analyse whether a more frozen or drawn out flow will look more pleasing.

So you won’t know which precise fast or slow shutter speed to choose. The solution? Don’t choose just one—use trial and error to mix up your shutter speeds and take multiple frames. (Generally, slower speeds will complement more dreamy scenes. While faster speeds enhance more energetic scenes.)

Here’s a typical scenario where I still can’t predict what my preferred shutter speed will be: when waves rush around coastal boulders or become funnelled down rock channels. To help guide me, here are two rough rules of thumb I rely on:

When the waves are flowing in: Faster speeds (around 1/5 second) look great to retain texture and showcase the ‘crunch’ in the approaching water.

When the whitewash is flowing back out: Slower speeds (around 1/2 second) help to stretch those receding leading lines out to the horizon.

In scenes that aren’t so ephemeral—like waterfalls or streams—take time and experiment by trying several shutter speeds. I’ll often photograph most river scenes at 1/2 second, 1/3 second, 1/4 second and 1/5 second.

Then when I review the photos later, I can select the frame with the most appealing water streaks.

Final thoughts

Like portrait photography or astrophotography, long exposure photography has its own set of specialised skills. And they can take years to learn and master. (As noted in that fourth tip on burst mode, I’m still refining my approach and trying new techniques.)

Yet despite that effort—or perhaps because of it—making a silky smooth long exposure photo can be one of the most satisfying experiences in photography.

It’s the combination of technical know-how, compositional creativity and transitory light that makes the technique such a rewarding pursuit. When it all comes together and you see those sleek lines on the back of your camera, it can be pure joy.