Calm in a landscape with long exposures

Saturday 18 January 2025, 15:51 by Nando Harmsen | 2,776 views | 1 comment

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

You can photograph a landscape in different ways. Sometimes a landscape can look busy, especially when there is a lot of water in the frame. A long exposure can bring calm to the photo.

Especially at the seaside, the waves and movement of the water can make a photo look restless. There is a huge amount of detail, which can be overwhelming. Sometimes you want that feeling in a photo, but sometimes you do not.

Do you feel that this restlessness does not give the photo a pleasing look? Then try a long exposure. This makes it possible to make the photo calmer, and in many cases more abstract too.

354mm focal length, ISO100, f/8, 1/400 sec
The many waves and movements of the water have been frozen in the photo by the short shutter speed. All movement has been removed, but this creates a huge amount of detail in the photo. This gives the photo a busy appearance.

If this amount of detail is what you want, then this is of course perfect. If you want more calm and abstraction, using a long exposure can be the solution.

254mm focal length, ISO100, f/11, 90 sec - Haida 15-stop ND filter
The choice of shutter speed is important here. Simply exposing for as long as possible does not always produce the desired result. Extremely long shutter speeds blur all movement into an almost even surface.

A shorter shutter speed brings back detail. The shutter speed you choose therefore determines the appearance of the photo. Choose the ND filter that gives you the desired effect.

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About the author

Nando Harmsen has been photographing for more than 40 years. He specialises in wedding photography and landscape photography. Nando also gives talks, workshops, masterclasses and photo trips, and regularly reviews new and interesting equipment.

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1 comment

Donald Willemsen wrote on Sunday 19 January 2025 at 00:12 | reply
Nando, this is a good story. The course you mention is also excellent. I’ve already taken it.
But of course the most fun is to go out and take photos yourself with long shutter speeds. Using, among other things, a good tripod, that will certainly work. I’ve done it once and thought it was a cool part of photography.
Translated from Dutch.

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