Sunset Impressions III
In the last post I explained how the use of a slow shutter speed of 0.8s, while not normally one I'd call a 'long exposure', in combination with the focal length 280mm used for these shots allowed me to create a blurred image.
To finish the description of the shooting technique I only need to describe how I positioned and moved the camera.
When using this technique I sometimes use a carefully leveled tripod to keep the horizon line perfectly level throughout the movement. These particular images were more organic in that they were captured handheld.
I usually practice the movement one or two times and then repeat it for the actual exposure. For these images I panned the camera from left-to-right through an arc of about 120° and tripped the shutter through the middle of the motion. In addition, for the image featured in this post, the third in the series, I held the camera at an angle so that the horizon line crossed diagonally across the viewfinder and I rotated the camera slightly during the panning motion.
Often more than one exposure is needed to obtain the effect I'm looking for and striving for a particular look often leads to many happy accidents.
The last step of creating these images, post-production, is completed in the digital darkroom and will be described in an upcoming post.