Long Exposure – Page 2 – In Photos dot Org

A Sentinel at Sunset

A groyne standing upright by the seashore near Youghal.

The wooden post in this photograph is part of Youghal’s coastal defence system called groynes. They are structures built perpendicular to the shore to prevent beach erosion by trapping sand moved by longshore drift. These timber groynes at Youghal are regularly maintained and replaced as part of ongoing coastal management efforts by Cork County Council. The long exposure technique used in this photograph typically requires exposure times of 30 seconds to several minutes, using neutral density filters to reduce the amount of light entering the camera, which creates the smooth, ethereal water effect by averaging out the motion of waves over time.

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	ILCE-7RM5
Focal length	39mm
ISO	100
Shutter speed	13s

Celestial Circles

The sun was particularly active last weekend, promising spectacular aurora with KP values of over 7. Unfortunately, the expected nighttime display failed to materialise. Instead, I swung my camera around and took 10 30-second exposures of the night sky, with the trees of a nearby road.

After combining them in Photoshop this is what you get. Not bad for 300 seconds.

Star trails form circular patterns around the celestial pole due to the Earth’s rotation, and in the Northern Hemisphere, these circles are centred on Polaris, the North Star, which barely moves at all in the sky. I wasn’t sure where Polaris was, but it looks like it’s just off the photo.

Aperture	ƒ/2.8
Camera	ILCE-7RM5
Focal length	24mm
ISO	1600
Shutter speed	30s

Green Light Go

One more from last week. This time, the long exposure shot is of a bus heading to Parnell Place in Cork. The traffic light had just turned green, so the bus was driving slowly, accelerating as it went. It made a colourful impression on the digital sensor of my camera!

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	ILCE-7RM5
Focal length	24mm
ISO	50
Shutter speed	4s

Light Trails on Eamon de Valera Bridge

Evening traffic whizzes past last week. Just after the sun had set, but the street light above my head hadn’t come on yet, so I got a nice long exposure.

How does photography affect your memory? Interesting podcast episode.

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	ILCE-7RM5
Focal length	33mm
ISO	50
Shutter speed	8s

Night Shifts and Trailing Lights

Construction signs on Parnell Bridge in front of Cork City Hall were lit up by a passing bus a few nights ago.

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	ILCE-7RM5
Focal length	24mm
ISO	50
Shutter speed	6s

Trácht ar Mhalairt Slí

If the road works, why are there signs pointing out where diverted traffic goes?

Did you know that most street signs in Ireland are bilingual? As Gaeilge on top and English below.

Thanks Henry, for the company last night. A good spot to do long exposure photography.

Oh, here’s something interesting about this photo. It’s made of two images I had to merge together in Photoshop because my long exposure shot wasn’t long enough. Two 4 second shots of a slowly moving bus on a corner.

Set the layer type of the top layer to “screen” and the lights in the air come through.

The resulting tiff file was 318.7MB. That’s a monstrosity for a simple image so I converted it to DNG which resulted in a 233.3MB file, and then to lossy DNG. That squeezed it down to 7.5MB! Not bad for a 9417×6278 image.

I couldn’t see any difference in image quality. There were slight differences when I clicked the auto Transform button, but nothing major.

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	ILCE-7RM5
Focal length	29mm
ISO	50
Shutter speed	6s

Steel Wool Spinning at Night

Spinning flaming steel wool around creates fiery trails in the air. Thanks Henry, for this photo I took in 2015!

Aperture	ƒ/4
Camera	Canon EOS 6D
Focal length	40mm
ISO	50
Shutter speed	13s

A Ghost in the Roundy

A little fun with long exposure photography creates a ghost coming out of The Roundy.

Aperture	ƒ/14
Camera	ILCE-7RM5
Focal length	24mm
ISO	100
Shutter speed	4s

Milky Way Over the Costa Brava

In July 2022, I was in Llafranc and wondered if I’d be able to photograph the Milky Way. Dark skies maps of the area showed glowing lights all along the coast, and it seemed unlikely, but I wandered down to the beach one night to try. I was pleased with the result because there was no way I could see anything like this with my bare eyes! There was too much light around.

Aperture	ƒ/4
Camera	ILCE-7M3
Focal length	16mm
ISO	6400
Shutter speed	20s

A Hotel on the Rocks

A hotel on the coast of Tenerife on Playa de Ajabo looks out on the Atlantic as waves batter the rocks underneath. They’re turned into mist by a long exposure photo in this evening shot, about 20 minutes after the sun has set.

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	ILCE-7RM5
Focal length	24mm
ISO	100
Shutter speed	3.2s

McCurtain Street After Dark

Micky O’s Craic House was still standing when I took this photo in January, 2016. The location is now, of course, the Rezz Cork Hotel.

Aperture	ƒ/14
Camera	Canon EOS 6D
Focal length	17mm
ISO	100
Shutter speed	13s

The Speed of Light on London Streets

The speed of light is definitely more than 20mph in London.

Aperture	ƒ/8
Camera	ILCE-7M3
Focal length	24mm
ISO	100
Shutter speed	13s