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Slooooow shutter speed

Some people work in a office all day, some people work with sparks

Catching the sparks from the fire is easy. You just slow down the shutter speed and you will have long sparks coming out from the fire, instead of small dots. Check the below pictures to see the difference between fast and slow shutter speed.

Shutter speed is at 1/100 of a second and the sparks looks like dots

Fast shutter speed: Shutter speed is at 1/100 of a second and the sparks looks like dots

 

Shutter speed at 1/13 makes the sparks longer

Slow shutter speed: Shutter speed at 1/13 makes the sparks longer

 

In these pictures I am using a shutter speed of 1/10 to 1/13 of a second.

I have croped out a little part of a big picture to only focus on the worker. So the sharpness might not be so good since he was pretty far away when I took these pictures. If you are wondering what he is doing then he is removing s steel pole. These pictures are taken with Canon 6D (full frame) and 24-105mm lens at f4 and f5 with ISO100 to ISO160.

When is it usefull with slow shutter speed?

  • when you want to create cool light messages. You can write words with a flashlight and using slow shutter speed to create bright letters
  • when taking pictures of fireworks
  • if its pretty dark out and you want the picture to capture more light then slow shutter speed is a option, dont forget to use a tripod
  • when taking pictures of cars head ligths or tail lights on a road, you might have seen the night pictures of red or yellow lights that are like lines on the roads. That can be made from very slow shutter speed

To control the shutter speed you can use the option called TV (Shutter Priority Mode) on Canon and S on Nikon.

 

2016©Expressive Photos

Pictures of fire

During earth hour my city arranged for a fire show. It was a nice event and here is some picture from it. The fire performers are called Favilla.

I have not tried to take picture of fire before so this was a good experience to learn which setting that suited me the most. I have used a Canon 60D with a prime lens of 40mm. I have tried different apertures to see which one that suited the most. If you move the mouse over the pictures you will find out the setting that I have used for each picture. It might be useful for you when you want to try to take pictures of fire. The settings worked for me and might work for you too.

What is common with all the pictures is that the pictures where taken without a flash. Most of the pictures are also cropped to remove unnecessary elements that take away the focus from the performers. Some pictures might have a green light because I had my Circular Polaris filter on as I do not have a UV filter for this lens yet. The CPL filter will also have made some effect to the picture even though I did not pay much attention to the filter and did not turn it because I only wanted to test the setting on the camera at this event.

When I took the pictures I choose tungsten in the white balance mode.

All the pictures are taken handheld, no tripod have been used. I love the sparks from the fire in this picture.

2014©ExpressivePhotos