Tag Archives: long exposure

Live Time

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One of the coolest features in the Olympus OM-D camera is its Live Time Mode. With it, you can see a long exposure come to life as it happens. I wanted to add a little magic when photographing the hazy Petronas Twin Towers earlier tonight.

In Live Time Mode, I rotated the camera slowly while hand-holding it and monitored the result on the LCD screen. The car lights, street lights, traffic lights and building lights turned into circular streaks.

When I see the light trails and exposure becoming optimum, I clicked the shutter again to stop the exposure. Previously and with other cameras, B or Bulb Mode is a hit-and-miss or trial-and-error affair.

Live Time reminds me of the time when I was a kid developing prints in the darkroom and seeing the pictures come to life in the chemical trays. Sheer magic!

Olympus OM-D, ISO 200, f11, 8 secs.

Live Time

River Of Fire

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Traffic flowed like molten lava spilling from a volcano in this long exposure of a busy city street. The rain last night and the resulting wet surfaces enhanced the liquid look.

I was at first tempted to use a Joby GorillaPod to clamp the camera onto the railing of the bridge where I stood. There was too much vibration so I opted for the Manfrotto 190CX carbon fibre tripod on the concrete floor. It is fairly stable given its small footprint and is light enough for gun and run-style shooting. Certain overhead pedestrian bridges are dark and known spots for mugging so is a good idea to stay agile.

Olympus OM-D, ISO 200, f11, 10 seconds.

Lava Lawa

Afterglow

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The warm and magical afterglow over Kuala Lumpur city after the sunset at 7:50 pm just now. In a long exposure, the camera sees what our eyes cannot. I didn’t even noticed the crescent moon when I was looking through the viewfinder.

Apart from composing and framing the shot, there are quite a number of things to worry about when doing a shot like this. It is always a race against time as the glow fades and hues change very fast.

A solid tripod is required. Set the ISO to the lowest value and turn off IS. Since I didn’t bring my remote release cable, I used the camera’s 2 sec timer to eliminate camera shake from the finger. I also kept the camera switched off until I am ready. This reduced potential noise from a heated-up sensor.

Olympus OM-D, ISO 200, f6.3, 4 sec

Afterglow