Stefan Lenz - Long Exposure Photography quick and easy: Taking Photos with long Exposure Times for Beginners

Long Exposure Photography quick and easy

Taking Photos with long Exposure Times for Beginners

2021 Stefan Lenz

About the Author

Travel photographer and blogger Stefan Lenz launched his author career in 2018, and his debut book Solo on Tour quickly established itself as one of the most widely read guidebooks in the field of solo travel. However, Stefan became best known for his passion for crystal ball photography. His guidebooks on this topic quickly became bestsellers on Amazon in both Germany and the U.S., earning Stefan expert status in this field of photography. In addition to this area of expertise, he constantly fascinates his thousands of followers on social media with spectacular long exposure shots. The enthusiasm for his photos of this kind finally moved him to summarize his knowledge and experience of photographing with long exposure times in the form of a guidebook, thus providing his readers with a starting aid and source of inspiration in this area of photography.

www.stefanlenz-photography.com

Stefan Lenz, born in the German city of Eisenhttenstadt in 1983 and raised in the south-east of Austria, is a passionate travel photographer and constantly on the move to gather new inspiration for his photography

Content

Have you ever thought about the meaning of time ? It determines our lives and is an incredibly precious commodity for us. Nevertheless, we cannot control it, influence it, explain it or even begin to understand it. It is not tangible for us but still, we know that it accompanies us constantly. The nature of time challenges our minds. We know neither its beginning nor its end. We do not even know if it will ever end and what is even more paradoxical: Both an end of time and the possibility that it could be infinite are beyond our imagination.

You may be wondering why this somewhat philosophical thought should be at the beginning of a book about photography. Well, on the one hand, the term long time exposure contains the word time , and on the other hand, time plays an essential role in photography as a whole. Surely you know examples of photos for which the shutter button was pressed at just the right moment. A brief moment was captured and made visible to us for a longer viewing period. We find such photographs fascinating because they show us a world that we cannot perceive in this form in everyday life. Because for that we would have to stop time.

While such snapshots usually require a particularly large portion of luck, there is another area of photography that presents us with the essence of time in a completely unfamiliar way that is imperceptible to the naked eye. Unlike lucky shots, this area can be planned and easily learned by anyone interested in it. Of course, Im talking about the subject of this book - long exposure photography.

Long exposure photos have been inspiring me for many years. They offer a unique way of capturing movement in pictures and thus show us the flow of time. In fact, they are also the only way to clearly show on a photo which picture elements are in motion and which are not. In recent years, I have intensified my love for long exposures more and more. I've experimented with different techniques, different accessories, and various post-processing options to give my images the look I want.

In this book I would like to introduce you to this exciting and interesting area of photography. I will explain what equipment you need, what accessories are useful for you as a beginner and what settings you need to make on your camera. I will give you concrete instructions so that at the end of the book you will know exactly how to proceed and you can start immediately. I want to give you all my knowledge in the field of long exposure photography, as well as some tips and tricks that I use myself very often. We will also go through the most important technical basics of photography together. In addition, you will learn what is important in the post-processing of long exposures. Last but not least, I will present some of my favorite photos that I have taken in the past years. They will serve you as an inspiration and show you how easy it is to create stunning long exposure shots yourself.

But now let's not waste any more time and start right away, so that you can soon proudly present your first breathtaking long exposures!

16 mm - F11.0 - 30 sec. - ISO100 | Downtown Dubai

The absolute basic prerequisite for diving into the world of long exposures is the possession of suitable equipment. In the first chapter of this book, I would like to explain what equipment you really need and which items are optional.

Of course I would like to recommend you especially my own equipment, with which I have made many good experiences so far. So I can also recommend these items to my readers with a clear conscience. I will therefore mention some specific products now and then.

Cameras

The most important and basic thing you need for your shots is of course a suitable camera. Here I have some great news for you: For the beginning, it is not necessary to plunge into expenses and buy a very expensive professional camera. I would only recommend this if you plan to work as a professional photographer anyway. In the beginning, however, it should be more about learning and for that, there is only one essential aspect you should pay attention to when choosing your camera: For long exposures, your camera must have a manual mode or, ideally, multiple manual modes. This way you can set the values for ISO, aperture and exposure time yourself. If these terms don't mean anything to you yet, don't worry, I will explain them in the next chapter.

24 mm - F10.0 - 10 sec. - ISO125 | Skytrain in Bangkok

Fortunately, even very inexpensive cameras already have a manual mode these days. Yes, even with smartphones this is now the rule rather than the exception. That means, in principle, you could even start taking pictures with your phone if you don't have a camera and don't want to buy one for now. If you can't find a manual mode in the settings of your smartphone's camera app, that's no reason to abandon the idea right away. A look at the app store can reveal a wide selection of various camera apps developed by third-party providers, some of which have manual modes.

Although using a smartphone is a particularly easy way to get started with long exposures, I would recommend that you get at least an inexpensive bridge camera, mirrorless camera or DSLR camera. On the one hand, this gives you a lot more options when it comes to using accessories, and on the other hand, it is much easier to operate, since these cameras have buttons and dials for the settings. In contrast, on a smartphone, you would have to enter everything via various submenus on the touchscreen.

I used a bridge camera (Sony RX10) for many years and switched to a full-frame mirrorless camera (Sony A7R III) in 2019.

Lenses

When it comes to lenses, I have some good news for you again. Basically, there is no lens with which long exposures are not possible. The question here is rather how useful it is to realize long exposure times with the respective lens. Here, the focal length is the most important factor. What does that mean in concrete terms?

Long exposures are mainly used in landscape and urban photography. Consequently, they are shots that capture a lot of space, a lot of happenings, a lot of colors. So in most cases, it will be helpful for you to be able to choose the widest possible field of view. For this reason, I would recommend using a wide-angle lens for your long exposures. So the focal length should be in the range between 12 and 28mm. Im using a Sony 16-35mm F2.8 GM lens for my long exposure shots.