long exposure photography

The vast majority of the time I am shooting hand held and so try to keep a shutter speed of at least 1/125 to prevent blurring from camera shake. I recently have come into possession of a loaner Manfrotto tripod from my school that's enough of a beast to wield my Canon 5D on, and am excited to share my first dive into long exposures since, well, I don't know how long!



The above is a photo of Megunticook Lake in Camden, ME. It was taken after sunset when there was still a little bit of light left coming over the horizon. Settings: 30/1, f/22, ISO 50

I used my 28-135mm lens to take this photo for two reasons - I wanted the widest possible focal length, and 28mm is the lowest of all my lenses. I also wanted to be able to use my circular polarizing filter in order to properly expose both the sky and the lake as well as allowing me to slow the shutter as much as possible since the polarizing cuts down on the amount of light getting through to the camera's sensor.

I went out last night to try some more photos along the lines of that one, however it was a bust - none of the came out remotely as interesting. I've got my hopes up for next time though, and plenty of ideas for locations to shoot, so stay tuned for more!