how do i........................

[sobi]

get an effect like this.

from what i understand, its all about shutter speed. is this right? I posted this as a part of another post, but it was in the what should i buy forum. I figured maybe I should put this in here for a more comprehensive answer.

 

[ksmattfish]

The light trails are a result of a slow shutter speed; probably slower than 1/30th sec. The person shows up fairly sharply suggesting a flash from this camera or another light source (maybe a spotlight or strobe, or another camera). Aperture would be important to other aspects of the pic than the light trails. A wider aperture might expose more of the background lighting. A smaller aperture would allow more DOF to help with focusing in low light. You could also use aperture to control flash power.

 

[sobi]

since i got a quick relpy in this forum, im gonna link my other questions in this thread. I appreciate the help.




http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2263



.

 

[Bob_McBob]

That looks a lot like a double exposure to me.

 

[TwistMyArm]

I was actually thinking the same thing Bob. It looks like the photographer exposed the frame to capture the image of the girl and then did a second (longer) exposure on the same frame to get the light affects. Either that or the girl is very still.

 

[sobi]

i found out it was with a color splash, and he holds down the shutter button for a second or two, then when he releases, he gets the flash.

 

[ksmattfish]

This technique is called "slow sync" or "shutter drag". With an SLR (or any camera with manual shutter control), just use a flash in combination with a very slow shutter speed. Some point-n-shoot cameras have a slow sync mode; usually the symbol is a star or a moon or something. It is more common that the flash fires at the beginning (front curtain) of the exposure, but some flashes can be set to fire at teh end of the exposure (rear curtain).

When I'm shooting at wedding receptions I sometimes some pretty wild photos when I am using very slow shutter speeds (longer than 1/4 sec) because of all the other photographers using flash and videographers using spotlights. I set up a camera on a tripod overlooking the dance floor, and just used bulb to expose a minute or two of the first dance. I'm not using a flash, but all the other flashes going off light up the couple at several locations throughout the dance. Sometimes the pics turn out really cool and you can see the bride and groom in several dance poses in the same pic; sometimes the subject turns out to be pretty unrecognisable