So I had a friend of mine show me some photos that were done with a very small constant light (actually an old iPod classic) and because of the long exposure they were able to light the scene very professionally and creatively. So I wanted to experiment and try some long exposure shots myself. So with my new toy (motorcycle) I gathered my trusty Canon 7D, Tamron 17-50mm 2.8 lens and tripod and headed to the garage where my bike was sitting.
So I needed to find a source of light as I was going to be shooting in complete darkness. So I headed to the store looking for something that I could use to “paint” light over the sections of my bike that I wanted to expose.
I ended up finding the above Energizer keychain LED flashlight. So this light doesn’t put out a lot of light, but it could be very precise as well as very broad depending on how far I held the light from its target. So for $5 I figured it was worth the investment (picked it up from Home Depot).
So now I had a subject (bike) had my gear and finally had a small light. I was ready.
With the lights on in the garage I setup the camera on the tripod and framed the shot accordingly. Set the camera to manual focus (as it wouldn’t be able to auto focus in the dark) and then set my camera for 30 second exposure, f11, ISO 100, and lastly set the timer for 2 seconds. I was ready.
I then turned off the lights, fired the shutter, and painted the bike with my little flashlight.
The following pictures were my 2 favourite shots form the 8 photos that I took. I kinda wish that I had given the bike a little bit of a wash, but all in all I was very pleased with the outcome of the photos.
If there are any questions as to how these photos were taken please let me know. I will continue to play with light exposure as well as long exposure.
