70 Dazzling Long Exposure Photography Examples & Tips

Long exposure photography means using a long shutter speed, a tripod, and often a remote shutter release. The resulting effect is to sharply capture stationary elements of a scene, while blurring, smearing, or obscuring any moving elements. It’s a beautiful effect, and can lead to incredibly beautiful images. In this roundup, we’ve compiled some amazing long exposure photography, along with useful tips and links to help you try it yourself!

3 Tips For Long Exposure Photography

Go Steady

Whenever you’re leaving your camera shutter open for a long period (anything above the reciprocal of the lens’ focal length – i.e. 1/50th of a second for a 50mm lens), you’ll need to have something to steady your camera. Holding it by hand is perfectly fine for many shots, but not if you’re wanting to experiment with a long exposure.

Start by picking up a tripod. It doesn’t need to be a particularly fancy or expensive model, particularly if you’re only just starting out. Choose a size that fits your compromise between being large enough to be useful, but small enough to carry around as needed.

You could also purchase a cable release, to avoid any shake when you physically press the shutter. A cheaper alternative to this is simply using the self-timer on your SLR. Set it to two seconds, and then stand back!

Use a Neutral Density Filter

If you’re wanting to use a long exposure in daytime for a blurring effect, you’ll often find that your image quickly becomes over-exposed with blown out highlights. To remedy this, try using a neutral density filter. These come in all manner of different varieties, each of which will allow you to maintain a longer shutter speed in particular light conditions.

These are particularly useful when you’re trying to blur the motion of water in daylight, or if you’d like to reduce the depth of field in very bright lighting conditions.

River Llugwy

Head Out at Night

Although there’s plenty to be captured in the day, long exposures at night take on a completely new feel. It’s a widely showcased type of photography, but one that never fails to impress and amaze. It shows a blurred aspect of light that we never see with our own eyes, and captivates viewers for that very reason.

The usual advice applies – You need a tripod, lots of patience, and a few interesting sources of artificial light to incorporate in the photo!

Bright Atlanta

Dazzling Long Exposure Examples

Endurance

Making An Appearance

In The Groove

Super S

News flash

Country Road at Night

7 snake

Another Early One

Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Kiz Kulesi

Golden Gate

time to choose the right colours..

Platform Holly

Santa Monica Spin

Railway to Heaven

Snake Trail Road

Dune Blazers

Zion at night…. with a real camera.

Sunset Road

Another Sunset in Austin

Last passenger

Hyperdriiiiiiiiive

Burning Man

Railroad

back to the future…

Davenport

Rowena Crest

exposure

Rockstar

Petit groupe nocturne …

Daily Disney (Explored)

Speed Tunnel

Inter City Fisheye

Moonlit Cruise

flickrwhore

Champs Elysée

More Tower Bridge Traffic

Extreme Remix

The Stars Will Always Shine

Freeway Flow

1907 Yosemite Valley

Noches doradas

Abduction in Altadena

Ball of light – That Sinking Feeling

Foppolo by Night

port-O-potty

KFOG KABOOM

Speed of light

Car

Heavens Above

Nòria del Tibidabo

last train

Don’t Walk, Dante!

Locked

Expressboat leaving

- U -

Pacman II

Persistence

Northern Chicago and the Lake Michigan

Long Exposure

Holy Long Exposure

People mixer

Golden Gate bridge

The couple

Point Lobos

On the roof

Ode to Notraces

Vernazza

Long exposure Self Portrait

Other Resources Elsewhere

Ten Long-Exposure Photography Tips

Guide to daytime long exposures

8 Tips for Long Exposure Photography

Technique – using long exposures to achieve “glassy” water

Long Exposure Night Photography Technique

How to Shoot Light Trails