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5 Tips For Long Exposure Photography

5 tips for long exposure photography for both mirrorless and DSLR cameras. Follow these effective tips for better long exposure photography.

  1. For DSLR cameras, cover the viewfinder with the VF cover or black gaffers tape
  2. Close all the port covers on your camera or use black gaffers tape
  3. If you’re stacking ND filters and there are gaps for light to get through, cover with black gaffers tape
  4. For DSLR cameras, always start your photo capture in mirror lock-up
  5. No matter the camera or lens, turn off the image stabilizer, vibration reduction, or vibration control when on a tripod.

Transcription was done by Descript‘s automated transcription services which means it’s an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain spelling, grammar, and other errors, and is not a substitute for watching the video.

Five tips for better long exposure photography. Here we go. He, this is Scott Wyden. Kivowitz a storyteller with a camera talking about all the things photographers like you and I are thinking about. And in this video, we’re going to be talking about long exposure photography and how to make better long exposure photos. You may or may not know, but I wrote a book, an e-book on long exposure photography a few years back, and it is an evergreen thing. It’s an evergreen topic. It’s something that doesn’t really change much. So if you don’t already have that, e-book go check it out. Scott, widen.com/ebooks. But in the meantime, in the meantime, here’s some tips for better long exposure, photographs, tip number one, cover that darn viewfinder. Now, if you are using a mirrorless camera, you don’t have to worry about this because there’s no mirror for the light to reflect off of and go up into your viewfinder.

And it’s not, it’s not a problem with mirrorless, but if you’re using the DSLR, cover your darn viewfinder, most DSLR cameras come with a viewfinder cover. If yours does not. Or if you cannot find yours, a little bit of black gaffer’s tape can go a long way or a t-shirt throw a t-shirt over your, over your camera, not your lens. Just your camera. Next up is actually covering the ports of your camera. If your camera is not weather sealed for water to get through, that means that light can also get through where water can get through. So be sure to cover any ports. That means if you have rubber seals, put those over and make sure that they’re secured in place. If your camera has the rubber seals removed for whatever reason, or if there’s plastic and not rubber, or if for whatever reason, you just have no port covering at all, then gaffers tape gaffers tape can be a really good friend because any little bit of light going into that camera can impact a long exposure, especially as you get to like our exposures.

If your filters, if you’re using screw on filters and for whatever reason, there’s a gap between them, maybe one, a little bent and you don’t have the money to replace a filter because ND filters are kind of expensive. Then again, gaffers tape can be your best friend. Uh, just, you know, if you’re doubling up in D filters and they’re screw on filters, and there’s a gap, just wrap some gaffers tape around the filters, that’ll block the light black gaffers tape. Of course I’ve shared this numerous times. I have an entire video about this, but mirror lockup, mirror lockup, every single DSLR camera has mirror lockup. Now, mirrorless cameras, again, do not have this problem because there’s no mirror to lock up. If you’re doing long exposure and it’s very low, like hour long exposure, and that mirror goes up, it’s causing a little bit of vibration.

So by putting your DSLR in mere lockup mode, again, not relevant from your list, then you are actually removing completely removing the ability for that mirror to cause any vibration when it goes like that inside of the camera body. Now, up until now, I’ve talked all about camera bodies, but now this last tip, the fifth piece of advice I have for you for better long exposure photography is related to the lens. Okay? In some systems, it’s actually still the camera body, but image, stabilizer, image, stabilizer, vibration control, vibration reduction, whatever your company, your camera brand calls it through all basically the same thing. Some have it in the lenses. Some have it in the bodies. Some have it in both either way. Newer cameras like the newer Nikon cameras and the newer County cameras are getting smarter and smarter. Recognizing when the camera is still completely still on a tripod. And when that happens, they tend to turn off the vibration, control the image, stabilizer, the vibration reduction, whatever. Again, they call it. Now it doesn’t actually show you that it’s all but many times they do disable it to be safe. Whenever your camera is on a tripod, especially for long exposures, turn

Off

That vibration reduction. Turn to just turn it off. Image. Stabilizer can actually, if it runs when your camera’s on a tripod can actually impede on your long exposure causing its own blur, because now those gyros are moving, trying to stabilize for something that’s

Already stabilized. So there you go. Fine

Really important tips for better long exposure photographs hop to it again. Scott wine.com/ebook. If you want to download the ebook or scout wine.com/courses, if you want to access my long exposure photography course, just head over there or just join the dojo $10 a month. See ya.

By Scott

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