How to photograph light trails

When I first learnt about shutter speed, all I could see on the camera dial, where these numbers. Thats what they processed through my head as, not shutter speeds, but weird, dysfunctional numbers. This was all until I learnt what shutter speed meant.

A Simple Version
A long shutter speed captures blur.
A short shutter speed freezes a scene.

That's all it is, but this is where "them numbers" start rearing. A short shutter speed would be 1/60. A longer shutter speed which could capture blur would be a second and longer. This comes up on a d-slr as 1".

This is what works for me, it may not always work for you depending on the scene you are trying to capture and the amount of movement and how fast that movement is.

Using shutter speed enables you to capture the light trails as when you open the shutter speed for a longer amount of time you can capture the trails of the cars.

Bulb mode is a mode availible in manual mode. Using bulb mode enables you to time precisely how long you want the shutter speed open for. This is great for capturing subject movement.

All you need to do is hold the shutter speed for as long as you need it open, when you are finished you let go! That's it. This way you can decide the exact moment you want to start capturing you image and when you want to stop. It gives you more control as you do not need to choose the shutter speeds which are embedded into the d-slr.

Aperture for me is probably the hardest thing I've learnt in photography. All the f-stops and bigger means smaller thing was too much for me to handle. I'm going to try and break it down for you, something that is easier to handle, little bits instead of big, chunky ones.

An aperture of F1.4 would mean the opening of the lens is wide, this means it will let in more light.

An aperture of F22 would mean the opening of the lens is small, this means it will let in less light.

Seem easy? Thats the basic understanding. Once you've got that down and shutter speeds you can prtty much conquer the world.

Using a f-stop of F1.4 would give you a shallow depth of field. This is where you have less in focus. Using a higher f-stop like F11 would give you a sharp depth of field.

When using long shutter speeds, it's hard to just say what aperture you should use. It all depends on the lighting. However, saying that I do suggest that when taking an image you should using a higher f-stop which means f11 +. Again it all depends on the lighting.

I now suggest that you should actually get your d-slr out, if you haven't already and experiment with these features. Using manual mode and using you camera will help you understand about what aperute works with what shutter speed. You are not going to learn by just reading this, you need to actually try it out with you camera and get to grips with it.

Things to help you
Set a long shutter speed like 2 seconds and wave the camera about. What effect do you create? It creates a blurred image. This is exactly the same when you capture movement, except for the fact that you hold the camera still.

Set your camera in one place, make sure you do not move it. Use an aperture of somwehere in the region F18. Take a photo. Then take a photo with the aperture on F4.5. Whats the difference? That the first one is darker than the second one? This is because the first photo did not let as much light in as the second photo.

Practise is the key to understanding it all.

The first long shutter speed image I took is below. It was taken in the London Underground. I rested on the chairs and in manual mode, using the bulb feature, which came out to be shutter stop 9.4 seconds and aperture F22 I was able to create this:



I do not believe that you must have a tripod, if you have a steady hand and are leaning on something you can achieve good results. Though with a good tripod you have no risk moving the image thus creating camera shake whereas when not using one.

I did not use a tripod for the first pictures I took of movement, this is because I was fairly new to photography and did not feel the need at that particular point. Without a tripod I came up with results like this:



In this image you can see the camera shake at its best near the lighting of the station.

I took another one in Oxford Street. Here you can definately see the camera shake.



I later on invested in a tripod. The results of my photos did improve. I was able to take shots with no camera shake, thus the ones below.







To help you more you can check out the exif data which shows the shutter speed I used and aperture. Click on the image, and then click on more properties on the bottom right and side of the webpage.

Practise is the key to understanding it all.

Seriously, I thought that reading everything would just make it all clear, but it doesn't. Until I actually picked up my d-slr and started experimenting with shutter speed and aperture in manual mode did everything really sink in and come into prospective. So in the kindest way possible, go away and practise. Though not before telling me if I actually helped you learn something!