Long Exposure with Sony A7riii

Two Days of Long Exposures

As I travel through the Finger Lakes of New York, I’ve been largely shooting long exposures. I previously discussed using a tripod for night time landscapes. A slow shutter speed/long exposure has uses beyond just taking normal landscapes after sunset.

Robert Treman park in Ithaca, NY with Sony A7r3 and 16-35mm F/4 and 10 stop ND filter

In the photography class I teach, I’ve been asked several times the purpose of ND filters. My answer is simple, “waterfalls.” Yes, there are other uses, if you like to shoot wide open with large aperture lenses in full daylight and video shooters have other uses. But for me, I use neutral density filters for waterfalls.

I’ve been using a fairly affordable 10-stop ND filter from ICE. (Buy here on Amazon). For those who are unfamiliar with ND filters, they are sunglasses for your lens. When shooting waterfalls, I like to capture the movement of the water, creating that artistic glassy look:

Robert Treman swimming hole with Sony A7r3 and 16-35mm F/4

I took these images with the Sony A7riii and the Sony 16-35mm F/4. These photos were taken in less than ideal light — bright midday sun. These photos used shutter speed between 3 seconds and 10 seconds.

Without an ND filter, the only way to accomplish a slow enough shutter speed would be to stop the lens aperture way down, but when you hit F16 to F22, diffraction really starts to impair the sharpness of the image. (And even with such small aperture, you might not be able to use a slow enough shutter speed).

With the use of a decent ND filter, I get the resolution goodness of the Sony A7riii, a sharp image, shooting at the lens’s sharpest apertures. These were taken at F8.

Any time you have flowing water, a slow shutter speed enhances the image in my opinion.

Gorge Trail at Robert Treman park in Ithaca, NY

One more example of Cascadilla Gorge, cutting right through the Cornell University Campus:

Cascadilla falls at 25 seconds exposure with ND filter

 

When using a slow shutter speed with ND filter for waterfalls on a Sony mirrorless camera, like the Sony A7riii or A7iii, don’t forget these settings:

• Use a tripod
• ND filter attached to lens, between a 6 stop and a 10 stop filter.
• Aperture priority mode, selecting aperture based on desired depth of field. With ultra wide lenses, F8 is typically sufficient.
• Manually set ISO low, ISO 100.
• Letting the camera determine a slow enough shutter speed for the exposure.
• Turn OFF steadyshot
• Use a remote shutter for 2 second shutter delay/self timer.
• With the ND filter, phase detect AF is difficult. You can set to AF-S, as contrast detect AF is used in AF-S, and works better in low light. You may also use manual focus.

My gear for these shots:

• Sony A7riii
• Manfrotto BeFree Tripod
• Sony 16-35mm f/4 lens
• ICE 10 Stop ND filter

I haven’t just been doing waterfalls…..

Long Exposure and the Stars

Where I live, in the suburbs of New York City, there is tremendous light pollution. Getting upstate, I was looking forward to shooting darker skies:

Stars with Batis 25mm At F2.2, ISO 1600 and 8 seconds

Star Eater?

Much has been written about the “star eater” issue with Sony cameras. Essentially, at long exposure, Sony cameras delete “hot pixels” and small stars can be mistaken for hot pixels. As a result, some stars can get deleted.

As shown above, you still get PLENTY of stars with the Sony A7riii. I won’t call the star eater issue fake, but it is exaggerated.

Batis 25mm stars at F2.2 and ISO 3200, 8 seconds

Settings for Basic Star Shooting

• Wide angle — lets you shoot longer shutter speed while stars still frozen in place. Otherwise, you may capture the stars looking like short lines instead of dots.
• Uncompressed raw.   In most cases, you don’t lose any quality with compressed raw but night skies can benefit from uncompressed files to prevent any artifacts.
• Full manual settings. You will have to chimp and re-adjust as you go.
• Large possible aperture.
• Slow shutter speed, my images are mostly between 8 second and 15 seconds
• High ISO, I’m typically between ISO1600 and ISO6400 depending on aperture and shutter speed
• Typical tripod set-up: Remote release or 2 second time, steady shot off
• Manual focus, using focus peaking and focus magnification, or simply estimating your focus distance.  If you truly are in pitch darkness, can be very challenging to set focus.

What Aperture Lens?

The above image was taken with the Zeiss Batis 25mm F/2. At F2, this lens lets in plenty of light, but it might not be wide enough for some people. Many Sony shooters may wish to use the Sony 16-35mm F/2.8 GM for fast and wide.

I’ve heard many people say you can’t do Astro photography with F4 lenses, that the aperture is too slow. The high ISO capability of the Sony A7riii makes F4 doable for star-scapes in my opinion. The below images are taken at 16mm with the Sony FE 16-35mm F/4.

Stars with Sony 16-35F4, at ISO 5000 and 16mm

July 4th means FIREWORKS

Fireworks at 23mm F7.1 and 13 seconds

As I write this, it is July 6th.  So my American readers are likely done with their big fireworks photos for a while, but feel free to bookmark this page and re-read it next year.  Of course, there is no shortage of articles on the internet about shooting fireworks.   Still, I’ll share my own limited insight..

• Set up your location and composition in anticipation of the fireworks.   For my shots, I had my camera pointed in the wrong direction and had to completely re-compose my images.  Ah well…..
• Include foreground in your images, so it’s something more than bright lights in the sky.  Even if the foreground is other people watching the show.
• Use a tripod, meaning turn off steadyshot, use a remote or 2-second timer.
• Pre-set your camera, I typically start with F8 or F11, 8 second exposure and ISO 100.
• If the fireworks show goes long enough, adjust your settings as you go.
• Be aware as the fireworks get more intense, especially during the finale, of overexposing the image as here:

fireworks overexposed with 6 second exposure at F7.1 during the finale blast

In the first shot above, before the fireworks got too intense, a 13 second exposure produced  a nice blast.  Though I reduced the shutter speed to 6 seconds at the end of the show, the quick intense blasts still left a completely blown out image.

A few 10 second exposures:

My Gear for Fireworks

For these shots, I simply used:

• Sony A7riii   — BEST CURRENT SONY A7Riii bundles as of 7/6/2018 HERE
• Sony FE 16-35 F/4
• Manfrotto Befree Tripod

Long exposures open up all types of creative photography.  Thanks for reading and please follow me on twitter with the top right button.