Long Exposure Look?

[InfinitePhotos]

Trying to take a stationary image and make the sky look like the clouds are moving... otherwise known as a long exposure, the ocean looks soft but the main subject is clear.

 

I saw the tutorial on the iPad Pro but can't locate where I saw that. Actually trying to attempt this on the Mac.

[dmstraker]

Some thoughts:

• Do it in the camera with long exposure, narrow aperture and low ISO.
• Use a dark neutral density filter on the camera, such as the Lee Big Stopper. to force a longer exposure.
• Do a number of short-exposure-time images. Blend as a stack in AP. Take one image for ground and mask in the blended sky.
• Use an AP blur filter on the sky. Either motion for lateral movement or radial if the clouds are moving from a point.

[InfinitePhotos]

Funny

[James Ritson]

Hey InfinitePhotos, what dmstraker said is pretty much on the money. It's better to try and achieve this in effect in-camera if possible. You can replicate it in post-production but it's not quite the same. That said, some additional thoughts:

• If you're experimenting and don't want to spend a lot of money, search Amazon or eBay for something like an "ND1000" or "ND2000" filter. This will be a strong neutral density filter in a screw thread which you can just attach to the front of your lens. You can also get cheap variable ND filters but you'll likely find the strongest point is practically unusable because the two circular discs will meet and produce horrible vignetting. If you're definitely after long exposures, a strong, fixed strength filter is usually the way to go.
• You can also try the other type of filter - square filters held in front of the lens by a bracket. Beware though that the cheap ones really are cheap - you'll typically get colour casts and contrast reduction that's very hard to combat in post. For square filters you'll probably want Lee/Rollei/Cokin etc.
• In combination with the ND filter, you'll want to use the lowest ISO possible (some cameras extend lower than the base ISO at the expense of dynamic range, so be careful using those settings) and stop your lens down to a reasonable f-number. Using a stronger filter means you can avoid stopping down all the way to f/11 and smaller, which can often introduce diffraction and soften your image.
• Many cameras will limit the longest exposure time to 60s or 30s - to get around this, you can shoot several of these long exposures then stack them in Photo using a Mean/Median operator to make it look like a much longer exposure. See the Big Stopper Effect tutorial for an example of this. The astrophotography Star Trail Effect tutorial, whilst a different subject, also highlights the use of stacking long exposures and then blending them.

 

Not sure which iPad tutorial you watched? I haven't done a long exposure/big stopper one yet ;) - maybe it was the sky replacement video?

[carl123]

Unless this has suddenly become a Photography and Camera forum I suspect the OP wanted to know how to fake the long exposure effect in Affinity Photo

 

The tutorial below for Photoshop may be of some use

 

http://photoshopdesire.com/create-fake-long-exposure-photoshop/

[Alfred]

Unless this has suddenly become a Photography and Camera forum I suspect the OP wanted to know how to fake the long exposure effect in Affinity Photo

 

That's a fair point, Carl, but Dave Straker did say

 

• Use an AP blur filter on the sky. Either motion for lateral movement or radial if the clouds are moving from a point.

 

and James Ritson said

 

• Many cameras will limit the longest exposure time to 60s or 30s - to get around this, you can shoot several of these long exposures then stack them in Photo using a Mean/Median operator to make it look like a much longer exposure. See the Big Stopper Effect tutorial for an example of this. The astrophotography Star Trail Effect tutorial, whilst a different subject, also highlights the use of stacking long exposures and then blending them.

 

I suspect that all of us, including the OP, agree that it's better to achieve the effect in-camera rather than via post-processing.

 

The tutorial below for Photoshop may be of some use

 

http://photoshopdesire.com/create-fake-long-exposure-photoshop/

 

Thanks for the link. :)

[anon1]

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[Alfred]

Thanks, MBd. I bow to your greater knowledge!

[anon1]

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[dmstraker]

Yes, you don't need filters like you used to.

 

However, graduated ND is good when there's a higher dynamic range than your sensor can cope with (even with RAW). It helps, of course if the horizon is level, though you can compensate for dark-top mountains in AP.

 

The alternative is exposure bracketing and stacking games, though this can get problematic when the subject is moving (good HDR deghosting can help). For movement, also, non-grad NDs turn down the sun very well.

 

After this, it's philosophy. And Aristotle didn't have the benefit of AP, so he would have been biased.

[Alfred]

After this, it's philosophy. And Aristotle didn't have the benefit of AP, so he would have been biased.

 

I'm willing to bet that Aristotle wasn't much of a photographer, either! :D

[Daryll]

Hi All,

I'm aware this is an old post, Was wandering if it is possible to limit the below blur idea to one section of the picture? for example the Sea of landscape.

On 6/11/2017 at 11:10 AM, dmstraker said:

Use an AP blur filter on the sky. Either motion for lateral movement or radial if the clouds are moving from a point.

I realise that this quote is taken out of context, and it would indeed be best to capture this effect in camera, sometimes however it isn't possible and I'm wandering how much I can create in AP, more out of curiosity?