Struggling with long exposure / D7200

Devin Fahie

New member
Hello all. As I learn the art of photography I enjoy new things. This should weekend was an un-successful weekend of daytime long shot exposure of a river. My settings varied but we're around 100iso, F8 to 18+, WB 5500, Shutter speed 1 to 3 seconds.... on Shutter and Manual modes.... nothing but a white blur..... I know it's human error.... but I can't seem to see where I am going wrong. I was shooting a still shot, with the exception of the water, there was allot of snow in the scene as well.

Thanks all
 

Nikos_St

Senior Member
Long exposure in daytime, in most cases, requires a ND filter in order to cut out the light. If you search it, you'll see that this is the only way. Another way is if you go way down in aperture and not to long in shutter speed, for example 0.5" or something like that and this if you have a dark environment(many trees, clouds etc)

So it's not necessarily your fault.

Sent from my Nexus 6P
 

nickt

Senior Member
I think you need to read up on exposure principals. You can't just arbitrarily choose a longer shutter speed to blur things. It all has to balance out with aperture and iso. Like Nikos said, you will probably need a ND filter. But get yourself familiar with how shutter, aperture and iso are come together to give a correct exposure. You can't normally just change one parameter without changing one of the others. Out in daylight, it will be hard without the ND filter to cut back on light. You are at iso 100, that's the best you can do to make your camera less sensitive to light. As Nikos said, you can make your aperture smaller but there is only so far you can go. Try aperture priority and let the camera meter the scene. Then as you raise aperture, the shutter speed will adjust down to maintain good exposure. You'll get what you get for a shutter speed and it might not go low enough to blur the river, but you should end up with a proper exposure.
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
ND filter - you can buy them as variable or as individual degrees of darkness. Whatever you get, you get what you pay for in quality optics. If you go with a variable then make sure you stay within the parameters marked.
ISO - set at 100
Aperture - you can always tighten up the aperture. But remember the tighter you go the more prevalent any dirt on the sensor will become. Try to use the aperture you want and lengthen the shutter time via the ND filter first. Don't be afraid to tighten up your aperture, but try to work ND first with the aperture you want.
Mode - I recommend manual. The water as it becomes foggy will start to get whiter and brighter which the camera will try to lesson in a semi auto mode. Then it becomes a game of exposure compensation. In manual just fire off a couple shots and adjust so that the waters level comes up along with the surrounding area, but prevent the water from blowing out. With a little practice and experience you'll start to just know the settings you need based on the scene.
Shutter speed - The speed of the water will dictate this. Of course faster water takes less time to fog. Slow meandering water can take quite a while.

Hope all this helps and when you have something share it.
 
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