long(ish) exposures in daylight?

ucddyan

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Hello there. I have this idea for a type of photo I want to take, but I'm not sure if it's possible. I want to try long-ish (1/2 - 3 sec - maybe longer) exposures during daylight to get things being blown by the wind to look blurry, but I also want to actually see the thing I'm trying to photograph. Here's kind of an example of what I mean: lillie park blowing wind 2 | Flickr - Photo Sharing! The thing is, I'm wondering how to "freeze" the things I'm taking pictures of as well - would it work if I pop the flash towards the end of the exposure?

I've seen plenty of daytime long exposure shots with waterfalls, but the ideas I sort of have with this would be like a field of flowers blowing in the wind so that they're blurred enough so that you just see colors / or maybe autumn leaves falling, but so that you can see a leaf mid-air but also see the fluid motion of the leaves coming down too.

I don't have the filters right now and it's not the right season (for the flowers at least) but I'm wondering if this type of photo is possible and how to pull it off. Has anyone tried this type of thing and if so could you post some examples and explanation of how you did it?
 
A Neutral Density filter should allow you to use a longer shutter speed and yes, a flash pop could help you to freeze the objects in place. It would likely take a good bit of experimentation to figure out which settings will work for you, but if you're up for that sort of thing, it should be fun.

Keep in mind that using a smaller aperture and an ND filter will help to get a slower shutter speed, but will also require more output from the flash. So you may require a very powerful flash and/or have it rather close to your subject.
 
Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely keep it in mind with the flash! Well at this time I have a polarizing filter, a SB-600 and nothing but time on my hands on the weekends. Not exactly what i need, but one day I'll have ND filter(s), a tripod, and nothing but time on my hands. I've got to give this a simple try sometime with what I've got and see how it comes out, I'll post it up here when I get to it.
 
You may want to get your camera on a tripod and take two shots: one with "normal" exposure where your shutter speed is fast enough to freeze everything, and a second with the long exposure. Then in Photoshop, layer the long-exposure version over the sharp version and erase away any part of the top image where you want the sharp detail to show through... That "should" work.
 
Low ISO
High aperature
Neutral Density Filter
Slow Shutter Speed
Camera on Tripod
Cable Release, if you can.

Maybe set your camera on shutter priority, and as soon as the exposure's done, switch it to a preset automatic mode that will automatically crank up the iso, speed up your shutter speed and open up the aperature, then take another picture as quick as you can. If you have an SLR you can probably do this in less than a second after some practice

Combine the two images digitally in photoshop or something.
 

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