Shutter Speed Assignment.

As part of photoskills A, we were asked to demonstrate our understanding of fundamental photography principles.

Part of this was shutter speed. We were given an assignment to take 5 photogaphs using long shutter speeds (below 1/20th of a second). I was luckily going home that weekend, so had the chance to take the camera out back in north Wales!
I felt as if the cliche image of cars leaving light trails would be a bit boring, though it would demonstrate my knowledge. As a result, I decided to look more at long exposures of water. Below are my results, all images had exposure times of over 1 second.

 

The image above was taken literally in the middle of a slow moving river. I set my tripod up, put on a 6 stop neutral density filter and exposed. 

This image was taken in the same river. The water in this area had just taken a plunge over a man made damn type structure, the water was very calm as it traveled away from the dam, but as a result of the turbulence there were bubbles visible in the water. The streaking effect in the water was caused by the bubbles traveling down stream.

 

This image was taken from an old life boat station near Beaumaris. The scene was very bright when I took this, so I needed to use both an ND6 and ND10 filter, doubled with an aperture of f/14! Giving me a total aperture value of 30.
The Menai straits doesn't have waves as such, as a result the water wont turn into the milky effect you see on many images without very long exposure times. The above image was taken with an exposure somewhere in the area of 2 minutes. As a result, the water has an impression of movement in it.

 

This final image was taken again from Beaumaris, yet this time with a far longer exposure time. As a result, the water and sky both became completely 'smoothed out' creating a surreal effect.








Long exposure photography is one of my interest points. I really enjoy the effect of daytime long exposures on landscapes, especially waterscapes.
Below are a few of my favorite long exposure photographs: