Long exposure photography in basic terms means leaving your shutter open for a longer than usual period.  You can sharply capture stationary elements of an image while blurring or even obscuring moving elements. Paths of light can be made clearly visible.  Using it at night can produce a near daytime effect giving you a bright image.

When shooting during the day, you will need to use a ND (neutral density) filter system, unless you have a very dark background.  There are many choices with differing price ranges, from screw in to filters on adaptor rings, e.g. Cokin or Lee filters.  You then choose different ‘stops’.  The higher you go, the darker the filter, allowing you to leave the shutter open for longer.

There are now numerous ‘apps’ available to help you calculate how long you can leave the shutter open.

Click here to see some of my shots in my new Long Exposure Gallery.

Enjoy!