Types of equipment that are needed to shoot long exposures

A tripod – this is a good piece of equipment to have in most instance, but is a critical piece of equipment for shooting long exposures. Make sure your camera is properly mounted on the tripod before you start shooting.

A camera – obviously you will need a camera, but many people assume you can only do this type of photography with an SLR. Some advanced point-and-shoot cameras can also do long exposures if they have a Shutter Priority function. Take a look in your camera’s manual to see if it has this function, you may be surprised.

Cable release – your camera will be on a tripod, so it should be very still, however, sometimes the action of pressing the shutter release button can cause the camera to move slightly and this movement can cause your image to blur very slightly. You may not notice this on the LCD screen, but when you open the image on your computer, it will be evident. I recommend getting a cable release (also called a remote trigger). It is simply a cable that attaches to your camera and acts as a shutter release button. Using a cable release means you can set up your camera, step away from the tripod and press the button without touching the camera. Cable releases can be wireless too. If you don’t have a cable release or don’t want to buy one, you could use your camera’s self-timer function to trigger the shutter.

Camera settings should be used

Shutter speed – depending on the light in your scene, your shutter time will need to be at least 10 to 15 seconds, or longer if necessary. If you are doing a seascape and the water is moving quickly, then a few seconds may be long enough to make the water look misty.

Aperture – you will want to have your aperture set at anywhere between f/8 and f/16. This again will be determined by how much light is in the scene and how long you want to expose for.

ISO – keep your ISO settings as low as possible, ISO 100 is what I use for long exposures.

It’s normally a good idea to shoot long exposures as the sun is setting, or just after sunset. My suggestion is to be on the scene an hour before sunset. That way you can test some shots, make sure your composition is good and be sure all your settings are correct. 

Any telephoto lens with focal length 200mm and above would be good. This is generic and affordable for most of amateur photographers. 

If you are willing to specialize in wildlife or willing to venture out in wildlife photography, can go for 150-600mm lens.

There are basically three fundamentals that you should follow for photography. Those are

1. Shutter Speed
2. Aperture
3. ISO / Film Speed

You can find a nice article on this fundamentals over here

But before that, you need to practice on Program Auto or Auto Mode (Creative Mode on Canon) for clicking in perfect composition. When I bought my camera, the sales guy suggested me to start with the only composition, rest you can master later. 

Here are some photo composition tips by Steve McCurry - The famous photographer

1. Shooting with 50mm lens can let you shoot at aperture as wide as 1.8 but a 18-55mm will allow you to shoot only at 5.0 aperture 
2. This difference itself is a huge deal. This means you can have the advantage of having faster shutter . Imagine shooting handheld at 1/15s with aperture f5.0 and then at 1/125s with aperture f1.8. This can be significant in low light conditions.

Diwali season is on. Time to shoot some amazing fireworks. Have you ever tried earlier?

I use my gears Nikon D750 with 24-120mm lens to capture fireworks. I used the kit to shoot fireworks last year. One of my few clicks are attached with my post. Few things that are must for shooting fireworks:

• Any camera which can exposure for couple of seconds, say 1 sec or more.
• Having a tripod is beneficial to keep the camera sterdy and align along any direction.
• Having a wired or wireless shutter release will allow you to trigger the camera without disturbing camera.
• Right location. It's utmost important factor. You must know where are you going to get fireworks. I prefer to shoot at my terrace. I can point the camera in any direction.

One more point which may seam difficult for most of us but very important is the patience. If you are trying fireworks for first time, it will be little challenging for you so all you need to do it to keep patience while clicking.

Coming to settings, there are no ultimate settings but keeping camera exposed enough in time will allow you to shoot fireworks so shutter speed must be 2 sec or more. If you are not really sure about how long should you keep the camera open, you can keep 5 sec or more depending on amblient lights around. If amblient light is low, you can keep much lower shutter speed. It will allow you to capture any moment in the sky.

Aperture would be good if I keep 5.6 or higher in number. If you still believe that you are getting very low intensity of fireworks, open the aperture. Reducing shutter speed here will not help. Keeping lower shutter speed will bring light trails in the image. So if you are getting good trails but low light intensity, need to widen the aperture.

Similarly if you are getting light intensity too high, need to reduce the aperture. It will cut down the extra light. 

Let me know if you have any points to mention to discuss. Do post your questions in follow up posts.

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I usually format my cards before every shoot. Make sure you have at least two copies of the same saved as back up. Name a folder in camera itself and then start shooting.