Extending exposure ....

This blog article may encourage you to try some longer exposure times in the studio or location and create some very eye catching dynamic images.

My set up for all of these images was a continuous cool running day light studio head (an Interfit  Super Cool Lite 6 x 55 W with a colour temperature  5200k and total output of 1350 Watts)  and off camera flash unit. The flash was used at the end of the exposure to give a degree of sharpness to the image so ensure you set the synchronization on your camera to rear or 2nd curtain. The flash output needs to be strong enough to have an effect, but not too strong that the image looks like flash photography and thereby drastically reducing the effect of any movement in the image. I set a  flash/strobe (Quantum QFlash) manually to 1/16 of it's output with a small softbox over it to give a even less harsh light. The image exposure needs to be about 1/3 to 1/2 stop under exposed from the continuous light  to allow for the flash add the final correct exposure to the image.

In theory you could get the same effect in strong day light without the need to be in the continuous light, although it is obviously more difficult to control sunlight and will need to use diffusers and reflectors to do this effectively.

To get the movement in the above image a fine piece of fabric was blown by a wind machine to get the desired flow wrapping around the model. Your model also needs to hold their heads as still as they can to stop the face from also becoming a blur with any unnecessary movement.  The camera was set to manual and a shutter speed of 1.6 seconds proved most effective for getting the right effect for this first image. The other camera settings for getting the right exposure will vary with your light but in this case it was taken at F10 at 50 ISO.


For this experimental photoshoot I also used bubbles to see what these would appear like at different shutter speeds. The bubble where produced using using two low powered bubble machines and you can see the differences that can be created at the different capture speeds below:

 

 1/2 Secs @ F9

1/4 Sec @ F7.1

1/20 sec @ F3.2

For all the above images some post producing editing has been done to give the images a cross processed feel but no other enhancements such as motion blur etc have been used.

 The advantage of longer exposure times is that mixed light sources can also be used so in my final example (below) you will see I have replaced most of the continuous light for light generated from a yellow rope light, I did add a smaller amount of continuous light just so we could see what we were actually doing, and the flash was again used at the end of the frame.

 1/6 Sec @F5 against a black background

 I am sure there are many other ways in which you could use some motion to good effect with your own still photography and I look forward to seeing other peoples results with this.

Marc;-)