Please help: how to make long time exposure portrait?

[Benjamin]

I remember there has been a similar thread before, but I still have questions unsolved...


Is there a possible way to make a long time exposure portrait shot? Just the same as making a normal long time exposure landscape photo but has a person in it. I struggled multiple times and had no luck.


Most of my shooting environment has some ambient lighting, so the person is not completely in dark. The background of course needs long time exposure; 10 seconds to half a minute are the most frequent time frames to consider. Because the person is somewhat lighted by the ambient lighting, ghost effect will appear since she cannot remain exatly in the same position for such a long time. If I use the flash, the person is still blurry (ghost) due to ambient lighting.


So is there a way to get rid of this problem? I'm aware of multiple exposure, but have little idea about how to practice. Or should I just use high ISO to shorten the exposure time? I know high ISO will give exposure time less than one second but the noise ruins the picture anyway. Is there a better way out?


Thanks for any help in advance!


Ben

[ThomasJ]

Hi Ben,


I don't know your exact shooting conditions/environment, but 10-30 secs for a portrait seems like a difficult shot to get!


Besides the obvious equipment - tripod, remote shutter release (or the built-in self timer) maybe some composition might help you get the shot:


Have your subject sit down, or even better - lie down. This way she can hold still for 10 seconds probably. If you can take a picture of your subject with closed eyes, your subject won't have to blink.
It can be hard though to make a shot like that and not make it look too staged.


Experiment with various shutter speeds, but I wouldn't try longer exposures than 10 seconds. Sitting perfectly still for 10 seconds can be really challenging.


Btw, what ISO settings and camera/lens do you use?



Tom





Btw: I feel silly advising you, as (judging by your photos) you seem way more experienced than I am... I have peeked into the forum from time to time to get some lens suggestions. Bryan's reviews rock, particularly his ISO-charts and vignetting charts help make a decision!

[Benjamin]

Tom,


Thanks for your tips! No, you're giving me good ideas, I'd like to hear how other people will do if the same problem is encountered, so don't say that.


Let me clarify a little bit. I basically want to take a long time exposure nigh landscape shot with a person properlly lighted in it. Because of ambient lighting, the person is always blurred after 10 seconds or even longer expoture times, plus the ambient light gives awful colors of the human face... I perfer to use a flash, a flash will light up the person properlly while keep every feature sharp. But the problem is how can I embed the flashed person into a long time exposure without being affected by the ambient lighting.


There does not seem to have a solution other than multiple exposures, but I'm clueless about how that may work.


I typically use ISO under 400 for such a purpose, most of the time ISO 100 or 200. Lens is a wide angle such as 16-35L or 24-70L kinda stopped down (f/5.6 or even smaller) since it's after all a landscape shot and I need the DOF.


Ben

[Keith B]

This sounds like a hat over the lens trick.


Set flash to manual and second curtain do a bulb exposure (hopefully you have a remote of some sort). Shoot the pic without the model at first. Place something completely black over the lens to darken it out then move model into place. Remove cover and then release the shutter and the flash will fire. You will still get some ghosting but you can play with exposure times with the model in the shot to reduce that.

[Benjamin]

Thanks for the inputs here, I really appreciate it!


I'll try those methods immediately next time and post some shots once I've done it. I can imagine those methods being worked out by me - I will spend some quality time on practicing them soon.

Ben is there any way you could use a couple reflectors to bounce some
ambient light on your subject to light them and cut down on the
exposure time?
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No. Unlike Vlad's shots, my lighting condition typically requires some 15s exposure at f/5.6, ISO200, so it's very dark. Most of the objects are far away in the background, I cannot use any light from them. But cutting off the exposure time while try to put all ambient lighting into the background then use the flash, just as Vlad has done, does makes sense.


again, thanks a lot!


Ben

[Chuck Lee]

Benjamin,


There may be some interesting reading here: http://strobist.blogspot.com/search?q=long+exposure+portrait


Other than multiple exposure thebest way to get a long exposure portrait is to expose the ambient and strobe the subject. The subject must be kept completely in the dark for this to work very effectively. I tried taking some long (4-6 sec) exposues of my youngest son while he was sleeping because I liked the way he was positioned and the ambient light that was on him. He did not move during the exposure. However, he was breathing. Just from him breathing the letters and patterns on his shirt were blurred.


Oh, one other. There was a detective TV show on a few years back where a photographer was so obsessed with sharpness that he payeda guy to bring in a model to photograph that was dead! I wouldn't suggest this method.


I'm sure if you researched long enough you can find some techniques to accomplish what your trying to do.


This one is really cool: http://strobist.blogspot.com/2009/04/one-light-one-kill.html


Of course Photoshop was an essential tool.


Good Luck,


Chuck

[Wes]

Ben is there any way you could use a couple reflectors to bounce some ambient light on your subject to light them and cut down on the exposure time?

[Vlad Xp]

Recently I found myself in the exactly same situation as you describe, Benjamin. Here&rsquo;s what I did to solve the exposure and ghosting problem. After several shots and by trial and error I found the right settings to get a nice shot of me and my girlfriend in a very dark environment outdoors.


I set my 40D on ISO 640, aperture f/5.6, and shutter to 1/10th second.
I placed the camera on a tripod, disabled IS, and set it on a 10 second timer delay.
I set my shooe-mounted flash (580 EX II with a small Lumiquest softbox) on a &ldquo;Second Curtain&rdquo; setting. That is important! Also, I placed her in such way where the ambient lights would be only behind her. This way, I prevented a color cast from appearing on our faces from the street lights.
Using a center focus point, I focused on my girlfriends face, and used the flash exposure lock button (*) to get the right flash exposure for her skin tone.
I then recomposed, and released the shutter button, after which, I ran up to her and waited for the flash. Here&rsquo;s what we got:








I found that using any other slower shutter speed will cause ghosting, because no matter how still you stand, you&rsquo;ll still move. The EXIF data is not available because I don&rsquo;t have access to the original images at the moment. I&rsquo;ll replace them when I get home.


I hope this helps.

[wickerprints]

Take two exposures, one long with available light, and one strobed. Composite the two in PP.