Instead of shooting one image, we need to shoot several (can’t stack only one image, can we?!). I want this exact shot, with the same ISO and F-stop, but with a slower shutter speed Even though we’re going to stack images to accomplish a long exposure, shooting with a slower shutter, using a tripod, and triggering the shutter with a remote, will all make things go smoother later. Maybe yes, maybe no… Here’s an alternative solution, with some powerful added benefits! Check out the full pro’s and con’s list at the end of this article for more about stacking vs ND filtersįrame your shot as you want it, and set your exposure settings as you want them. So… then everyone needs to buy filters for their lenses… right? While fun- holding sunglasses over your lens is a hack move if you’re primary focus is creating sharp, ultra high quality images. Then we actually held sunglasses in front of our lens and could immediately see we were getting more motion blur due to the slower shutter speed. We talked about using “Neutral Density” filters that block some of the light, like sunglasses for your camera. To create the image we aspired to capture, IN CAMERA, we needed to let less light in. AND! What if- creatively- we didn’t want to shoot at f/22+? What if we wanted a more shallow depth of field, with foreground or background blur? Not to mention lenses lose sharpness at the extreme ends of their aperture range, as well as adding vignetting (darker image around the corners). Here’s the trouble- it was SO bright, we were still not able to get slow enough shutter speeds to create the motion blur that really captures what is happening in the scene (rather than a fast shutter, which freezes time and stops motion). To get that silky, dreamy waterfall look most of us wanted, we were shooting at the lowest ISO setting available, and stopping our apertures down all the way… around f/22 for most of us. In a recent Waterfall Workshop I organized, we were extremely fortunate with great weather… but that also meant bright BRIGHT sun and a super well-lit waterfall. Unfortunately, it’s not always practical- or even possible- to shoot a scene exactly as you’d like. When the shutter snaps closed and the LCD lights up, and you see your creative vision has come to life… truly awesome. Me too! And if you’re like me, some of the greatest satisfaction in shooting comes from getting the image you want, exactly as you want it, IN CAMERA. If you’re reading this, chances are you love getting out and capturing. If you just want bullet-points without the blah-blah, skip way ahead and get on with your day… If you already know when and why this is useful feel free to skip to Part I. Preamble (applications and use-case scenario).I’ll run through a couple of the pro’s and con’s of stacking a long exposure, and finally I will glance over a couple alternate uses of stacking to maybe help spark some creativity and further exploration… I’ll run through it click-by-click in Photoshop (and you’ll be surprised how easy it is!), as well as how to do it manually- so users of other programs can still easily use this technique. This tutorial focuses on stacking to extend the duration of your capture, resulting in a long exposure / slow shutter image. Image stacking, or just “stacking”, is actually a pretty broad term that means taking multiple images and, one way or another, combining them. Here’s a quick-tip/full tutorial about an image processing technique that’s both versatile and powerful- and it only takes a few clicks! Like so many features in Photoshop, the software does the heavy lifting for us… we just need to know where to click to get it going.
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