A Tip for Long Exposures

 Submitted by Sheila Reeves

You are standing in front of a beautiful scene with rippling water, moving colorful clouds and a great composition of hills and trees. You think to yourself, “This would make a great long exposure.” You attach an ND filter (maybe a 6 stop or 10 stop) to reduce the light entering your camera. You dial in a low ISO to avoid a noisy image. You think you will need about a 2 minute exposure, so you put your camera on bulb mode and take the picture keeping the shutter open for 2 minutes. Oh no! You calculated the exposure time wrong. The image is way too dark or way to light!

Well here is a tip to determine if you calculation is correct without having to wait those 2 minutes.

Change your ISO by 6 stops. If you are shooting at ISO 100, change it to 6400. That is six stops. If you are shooting at ISO 64, change is to 4000. 

Then substitute seconds for minutes of exposure time: 2 seconds for 2 minutes, 3 seconds for 3 minutes, 4.5 seconds for 4.5 minutes, etc. If that gives you a good exposure, reset your ISO and take the shot for the original exposure time. If it does not, you can adjust the time up or down to get a good exposure without having to wait minutes between attempts.

What I See

Not much activity being posted on the club site as of late. COVID of course is mostly to blame, but neither have I made much of an effort to follow up on photo opportunities either of my own, or from others. As a result I searched thru some of my Beyond the Campfire posts and found this one from 2014. Thought it may be of some interest to the club members. Please, enjoy this slightly re-edited version of "What I See".

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Submitted by Keith Bridgman

Discovering a new way to observe the beauty that surrounds us can be an amazing revelation. Learning how to capture it photographically can be a challenge. Sharing it with others is the reward. This past summer (2014) I rediscovered the night sky and spent a great deal of time and energy learning how to not only observe it, but to capture it. It was a challenge that evolved into something much more than an exercise in technique or skill. It became a revelation of seeing.

I've often written about how photography is mostly about seeing light. But it is more than that really. It's about understanding what it is you see. There was a time I saw mechanically meaning I recognized the intrinsic value of what I was photographing, but failed to see beyond the superficial and cliche. Seeing photographically means to see through the superficial to find the solution.

More than likely previous efforts I placed on photographing the night sky may have seemed a bit over the top to most of my photography friends. A few of them gave it a try and then went on to other things that interested them more...and rightly so for them. I began to wonder why I was so captivated by that exercise. Night after night I would stand in some open field staring up at the night sky painstakingly adjusting the homemade tracking device I used to follow the stars across the field of view. Then later, after downloading the images and searching through the better ones I would spend time bringing out the best of what they were. Most of those images no one other than myself saw them, but that was okay. Because I wasn't taking them for someone else. I was taking them for me. 

What I saw was not just a night sky filled with stars and subtle colors of glowing dust along with nebula's filled with radiant gases. I saw a part of myself. In order to bring out the subtle nature of those glowing nebula's and radiant gases,  a long exposure was required along with patient and attentive tracking. When it all fell into place and that one moving image out of dozens materialized, well, a sense of satisfaction filled my heart. 

As a result I began to understand how that experience revealed a great deal about life. Everyone has subtle light in their lives that requires a long personal exposure along with careful and attentive tracking to see. 

With the right amount of effort and understanding, the light in their lives regardless of how faint, will over time begin to glow with it own unique radiance. When I smile as an image of the night sky begins to form, I am smiling because what I see is so much more than stars floating in the sky . . I see lives beginning to shine. 

Get Low to Shoot High - Go Wide for Compositional Details

A photograph can convey almost every imaginable emotion from any number of perspectives. After all, that is what photography is all about, capturing the emotion of the moment. Too often though, we photographers tend to always work from eye level when in reality we should, a great deal of the time, elevate or drop our camera perspective. Oddly enough, changing our camera angle and perspective will often enhance the desired effect we visually desire, but sometimes fail to capture. Dropping the camera low will actually help us capture the sense of bigness and using a wide angle lens will help define important compositional details.

Take this image for instance. The camera was actually placed inside a shallow ditch so it would be at the lowest possible point in the composition. A somewhat of a wide angle lense, (18mm which has a crop factor of around 25mm), ( a 14mm would have been better), was employed to capture the bigness of the sky.

By tilting the lens upward and framing the fence posts against the sky, then including only a minimal amount of the ground, the fence post in essence takes on a more important element within the composition and acted like a pointer toward the sky. Had the camera position been at eye level, the post would have blended into the background and would not have provided such a dramatic representation. The important elements here were the sky and the fence. Going low allowed them to be given priority.

The waterfall photo used a similar approach. The camera was placed a few inches above the outflow stream that led back to the waterfall. By angling the camera toward the top of the falls, the lower perspective enhanced the tallness of the ravine and gave the falls priority over the ravine and used the flow of the stream as a pointer.

Using a wide angle lens also captured compositional details by using a perspective that leads the eye to the main subject. Details in this case was less about minute subtleties and more about enhancing the main subject.



The image of the guys is another example of how using a low perspective enhances the composition. I wanted the young men to look bigger than life, to give them an appearance of being in a dominant position, that sort of "Bond, James Bond" atmosphere. This pose would not have worked had it been taken at eye level. Also, there is a sense of leading lines here as well, and there is a degree of framing provided by the background trees.

That brings up another subtle point. Sometimes we forget to remember the background and how it affects the composition. Always be careful about what is called "Convergence" where elements within the composition cross and interconnect. Things like a tree limb coming out of a person's head can ruin an otherwise great image. A little bit of extra spacing obtained with a subtle movement of the camera angle will often solve an irritating convergence.

The idea then is to use camera angles that will provide a unique and interesting perspective as opposed to always shooting from eye level. Think about what you want the finished image to look like, then use a camera angle that will best generate that effect. Go low to enhance the tallness of something, and getting low while shooting wide captures compositional details that tell the story. A simple change of position can have a big impact on the effectiveness of a photograph.

Story Telling Inside a Photograph

Submitted by Keith Bridgman

While browsing through some of my older Beyond the Campfire blog posts, I ran across this one. No one else has submitted anything in while on the club Media Page, so I thought maybe it would be a good one to share. This single photo is one of my favorites for it captures a wonderful photo story and encompasses compositional elements of building a photograph that carries a strong storyline in such a way, viewers will reveal their own story within themselves. 

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I walked somewhat sleepy-eyed along the gravel road, a road whose path wound its way toward an old country home tucked inside a gaggle of trees. It was late fall and the once dormant chill excited by a stiff wind engulfed the air surrounding me. The first light of the day was held in muted bondage by low hanging overcast that dipped close to the ground floating along pushed by the invisible hand of an approaching winter. The morning looked and felt gray. In the field to my left the rustic looking remnant of corn stubble stood as a testament to a successful harvest. On either side of the road an old fence row stood lined up like historic monuments to a time from the past.

About half way down the road a beam of the first light of the morning broke beneath the clouds and cast a cheerful glow across the home, the trees, and the tops of the the corn stubble setting the grass alight within the realm of the prevailing grayness. I positioned my tripod and camera composing the scene through the view finder, and released the shutter. A moment later the beam of light retreated back into the clouds and I was again alone standing on a country gravel road.

Photography is as much about telling a visual story as it is about capturing a moment in time. To capture a story one must first not only see what is there, but be able to feel the emotion of what surrounds you. It is the emotion of the moment that tells the photographer when to release the shutter and when you finally do, you instinctively know something unique and even amazing happened.

The visual story of a photograph may possibly be the most difficult element for a photographer to capture for it does not always willingly reveal itself. It is something you must seek out and to allow what is there to speak to your senses. Sometimes, it just happens. Most times it takes work and a willingness to turn off your other senses and allow your heart to grab hold of the story. Everyone must discover within themselves the necessary elements of how the world reveals such stories to them. It is not something that can be taught, only reminded. It is a personal reward well received, well worth sharing.