Saturday, 14 November 2015

terminology - What does "long exposure" mean?


Very often, when people are talking about photography, they use the expression "long exposure". Here's a quote from a recent answer:



A tripod and long exposure were required for this shot.



Where do exactly long exposure begin?




  • At the moment when tripod is required to avoid blur, depending on the vibration reduction features of the lens and the focal length used?

  • Or at n milliseconds shutter speed?



Answer



Usually, long exposure photography is about capturing stationary scenes with elements of movement being blurred. For example, this shot I took in Rome:


alt text


In this case, the exposure was 1.3 seconds. However, that definition isn't the only one, it's really just about capturing an image that will require a shutter speed that is usually too long to hand-hold. That doesn't mean you're on a tripod, you may be doing a long exposure shot hand-held for the effect, but under normal circumstances you would expect the need for a tripod.


Anyways, that's my take on it. Perhaps there's a more formal definition that one of our pros may offer up, but the first one I gave you appears to be the most common one for formal definition that I've seen.


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