Photography tips: Using the slow door to shoot, you can often get a false and realistic image, making the picture more dreamy and ethereal.
Usually, people refer to shutter speeds below 1/30th of a second collectively as slow-door photography. How to shoot a good slow door? The key lies in two words: slow and steady.
When the shutter speed exceeds 30 seconds, even under weak starlight, we can record the details of the scene, smooth out the fluctuations of the sea, and even capture the stars that we rarely care about.
On most cameras, the maximum settable shutter speed is typically capped at thirty seconds. If longer exposure times are desired, photographers must engage the B-shutter mode in manual settings.
When set to B, the camera initiates exposure upon pressing the shutter button, and the exposure continues for as long as the button is depressed. To utilize slow shutter speeds effectively, it's essential to stabilize the camera, typically using a tripod or similar equipment, to ensure minimal movement during prolonged exposure. Additionally, if conditions permit, having a shutter cable on hand can further facilitate precise control over the exposure duration.
When to use a slow shutter speed
1. Capture the indistinctness of fog
Choose your lens and specific subject based on your position concerning the fog.
If in the fog, due to poor air permeability, you can use a wide angle or medium focal length lens to highlight the close-up description of the surrounding area;
If you are outside the fog, you can use the fog, fog layer to create a virtual reality for composition, the general medium and long focal length lens will play a good role.
The use of long exposure will get a more ethereal artistic effect.
For example, to show the entire process of mountain fog drifting over the cliffs, you can use a slow shutter speed, according to the prevailing light conditions, using a smaller aperture, such as F16, with 10-15 seconds of exposure time.
To get a more detailed picture quality, and offset the long exposure and small aperture generated by the image noise, sensitivity should be selected as the minimum.
2. Capture the trajectory of light
How to capture the light trajectory in the city? Fix your digital camera, set the long exposure option, and then shoot a period where the car will create the light trails.
It's that simple, but if you want to get better results, you'll need a lot of practice to do.
3. Capture the serenity of water
Slow doors should try to shoot water scenes before sunrise or after sunset because there is plenty of light during the day;
Even if the aperture and sensitivity are adjusted to a smaller size, a long exposure will overexpose the photo to the correct amount of exposure, and a shortened shutter will not be able to capture the effect.
4. Capture the splendor of fireworks
Use the slow door to shoot fireworks, the first step is to find a good location and set up a good tripod, connected to the shutter cable. Try to set the focal length to infinity in passive focus mode;
ISO settings should not be too high and too low, too high will produce noise, and too low will lead to underexposure, generally between 200 and 400. A firework from the rise to burst and then disappearing generally takes 5-6 seconds.
The most beautiful time should be the first 2-3 seconds, so the camera shutter is generally set at 2-3 seconds. If a complete firework is to be photographed;
But you can not let the next fireworks affect the picture, then you have to open the shutter when the fireworks rise, and close the shutter when the next fireworks appear or even before this firework disappears.
5. Capture the stars gesture
This way many people do not use much but out of the slow photography extremely good method. Be sure to be in the night sky in very low light (night is completely dark)
Then use a very slow speed, usually with a few hours of exposure, to record the stars in the night sky trajectory of the circular gesture.
Sometimes to increase the variation of light and shadow in the picture may also use artificial fill light to light up the foreground or embellish the picture.
6. Shooting animal figures
Photographing animals in motion is not an easy task, especially when using a telephoto lens. The narrow field of view of telephoto lenses makes it difficult to keep up with animals moving at high speed; once lost in the viewfinder, it is difficult to get them back.
Our advice is to leave enough margin around the frame when composing and adjust the focal length appropriately to ensure space so that it is easier to use the viewfinder to track the subject.
7. Shooting people's image
Use the slow door to shoot the dancing dancers, the delicate dance steps with illusory trajectory performance. Against a dark background, the image appears more artistic.
