Long Exposure at night

Question

Im amateur photographer, just got my first DSLR camera (Nikon D3300), I was wondering how to shoot car trail light at night.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I was wondering how to shoot car trail light at night.

Step 1: Obtain a sturdy tripod or other means of keeping the camera a) steady and b) pointed where you want it. You don't want the camera shaking around during the shot.

Step 2: Set the camera's mode to M (for Manual) so that you can control both the shutter speed and aperture. Also, make sure the flash is off -- you won't need or want it for this exercise.^*

Step 3: Set a long shutter speed, a fairly small aperture (i.e. high f-number), and low ISO setting. Headlights and taillights are very bright compared to the rest of the scene, but they'll be present for only a short while compared to buildings etc. Your goal will be to balance the brief, moving, bright light from the cars against the dimmer ambient light so that both the scene and the lights are exposed the way you like. This will require some experimentation. Typical values for this sort of thing are:

• shutter: 30 seconds (not 1/30 second)
• aperture: f/22
• ISO: 100

Step 4: Mount the camera on the tripod, compose the shot, and focus.

Step 5: Set the camera to use its self-timer to release the shutter. This will produce a lot less camera shake compared to you trying to press the button yourself. Another option is to use a remote shutter release; IIRC, the D3300 has built-in wifi, and you can use your smartphone as a remote. The main idea here is that you want to avoid physically touching the camera when you take the shot.

Step 6: Wait for some cars to happen by and take the photo.

Step 7: Take a look at the image and adjust the settings to suit your taste. If the image is very dark or completely black, use a larger aperture (smaller f-number). If it's too bright, use a smaller aperture. Not enough car trails? Use a slower shutter speed, but compensate by adjusting the aperture or ISO in the other direction. For example, if you double the exposure time from 10 to 20 seconds, use an aperture or ISO that's one f-stop slower. There's lots more information about the relationship between shutter speed, aperture, and ISO here on photo.SE, so I won't try to cover it more deeply here, but you'll find all you can read by searching here.

Step 8: Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you get images that you like. And once you do get the exposure dialed in, take a number of shots -- when you look at the large versions later you may find that some have issues with camera shake due to wind or vibration that you didn't notice on the camera's screen.

The same approach will work for other long exposures, like photographing lightning, although the particular settings will probably be different.

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^*There are cases where you might want to use flash with a long exposure. In a comment below, Michael Clark points out that if you want to include the car as well as the light trail in the photo, flash would provide the light to expose the car. In that case, though, you'd almost certainly want to use one or more off-camera flash units rather than the flash on your camera. Using flash in long exposures is interesting and provides a lot of options, but it's a more advanced topic than I think you're looking for in your question.