4: Time Lapse photography
eye-catching long exposure effects

It’s time to get out your tripod for some long exposures. I'll address deliberate blur and motion via long exposures in another article, but for now we're talking a steady tripod, your image stabilization turned off, and a creative mind.

WATERFALLS
As it says on the box, waterfalls are an obvious candidate for long exposures, particularly if you like those 'soft' water techniques. Maybe some folk don't like the soft approach, but what really counts is shooting in a manner that pleases yourself.

OK, let's get started with three waterfalls from the Pacific Northwest photography tour . . .

Image 1: Sol duc Falls, Washington

All three images have exposures with shutter speeds of 1/15th of a second or slower for the desired blur, and the lowest ISO possible. If the exposures are too long however you'll lose the remote possibility of some kind of detail in the highlights.

Having included the leaves in the foreground of image 1 there is the risk of them blurring, so I made several exposures in the hope that at least one had sharp leaves . . . not that there would have been anything wrong with blurred leaves by the way.

Image 2 is enhanced by green moss on the rocks, which make an excellent contrast to the water.

PREFERRED TYPE OF LIGHT
Overcast is preferred as full sunlight will induce the contrast majorly, plus with the additional amount of light around a slow shutter speed is hard to achieve. Looking at image 3 with the rainbow, the waterfall is in full sunlight but I was able to get my soft water by using the smallest aperture possible, in this case f.22, and using a neutral density filter to reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor, and thereby lengthening the exposure. A polarizer works for this too and will 'slow' things by a stop or two.

By the way, the advantage of full sunlight is that you are likely to see a rainbow in the spray. The sun has to be behind you to see this effect.

WHAT GOES FOR WATERFALLS . . .
. . . also goes for the ocean. Image 4 below was exposed using the same techniques except that I waited for a wave to wash over the rocks, then released the shutter as the surf rolled back into the big blue puddle . . .

Image 4: Pebbles, Oregon Coast

Even more stunning are those long exposures at dawn or twilight as attested to by image 5 from a New Zealand photo workshop . . .

Image 5: Moeraki Boulders, New Zealand

The exposure in this instance was 2.5 seconds at f.20, and for image 6 below was 6 seconds at f.14 . . .

Image 6: Moeraki Boulders, New Zealand

STEADY AS SHE GOES
You don't want any tripod movement when using any of these techniques so I suggest you use either a cable release, wireless remote or your camera's self timer. I personally prefer to set the timer delay to two seconds. Holding the shutter button down during long exposures is not recommended.

TRAFFIC LIGHTS Pretty much the same technique is needed as for waterfalls and so on if you want to capture some vehicle motion. Image 7 at right gained it's vehicle light streaks via the use of a shutter speed of 4 seconds. The aperture was f.20. NOW YOU SEE THEM, NOW YOU DON'T Can you imagine photographing a busy city pedestrian area in the middle of the day, and not record any people in the frame? Ordinarily the answer is no, but with long, long exposures the answer is yes. In a similar vein, the image of clients shooting at twilight in the Canadian Rockies below, image 8, was a 2.5 seconds @ f.20 exposure. Had the exposure have been considerably longer while the folk kept moving about, they wouldn't have been visible in the final image. Note also that the trees, van and tripods are all sharp. Imagine the impact you can achieve with your own choice of subjects.

Image 7: Boise, Idaho

Image 8: Low light frivolity on a Canadian Rockies photo tour

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
In closing I'd like to mention another form of time lapse photography.

This is the re-photographing of say an old building, and comparing it with an original taken previously preferably quite a number of years back.

When trying this, do your best to create an exact match with the original lens perspective, and camera angle etcetera.

Matching lens perspectives should be easy as there weren’t many lenses to choose from in days of old. Therefore a standard 18mm or 28mm to 200mm lens should provide the right match. Of course the spot at which the first photograph was taken from, may now be a large hole, or have a Burger King on the site. In this case, a little improvisation is going to be necessary.

By comparing photographs in this way, you may find subtle changes such as window frame design that would have gone unnoticed otherwise. Future generations and/or family may one day have an appreciation for your efforts.