Making a very long exposure out of every shot may not necessarily produce the desired results.” “Sometimes a few seconds may be enough sometimes 2-3 or more minutes may work best. Then, find out what shutter speed would work best with that shot. If you’re new to taking long exposures, Marco suggests starting by just envisioning the shot you want to take. All Nik’s filters are now available for free, and I’ve found them to be great complimentary tools within my workflow.” When I convert to monochrome, I also use Nik Silver Efex Pro. It does a great job, much better than any raw file converter. When I want to remove it, the best I’ve found is the Darken/Lighten Center filter in Nik’s Color Efex. Sometimes it fits the image other times I prefer to remove it. Normally I do not blend exposure or stack images.Īnother aspect that requires evaluation when developing an image is the vignetting caused by the filter setup on the lens. If anyone is interested in luminosity masks, a Google search will reveal plenty of free tutorials or Photoshop actions that can be downloaded. Luminosity masks are a great tool to balance an image through targeted adjustments. Once in Photoshop, I mostly work using luminosity masks and do further adjustments to light and shadows areas and colors/saturation. I usually do some adjustment to exposure, contrast, curves or highlight and shadows as needed. “I normally start by cleaning up the raw files in Adobe Camera Raw, preparing them for further processing in Photoshop. Post-Processing Workflow for Long Exposures He’s given us a glimpse into his post-processing workflow with a couple tips: In addition to prepping well for shots (and visiting incredible places), Marco spends time post-processing images to make the long exposures as striking as possible. I doubt I will be able to witness the same combination of elements again.” The combination of dusk, northern lights and shooting star looked quite unique. To my surprise, one of the three frames also had a shooting star in it. I had to take three shot and make a panorama to include the whole display. It wasn’t night yet, but soon the lights filled the sky. Suddenly the Northern lights started to appear faintly in the sky and gradually become more intense. “I was on Uttakleiv in the Lofoten Archipelago taking long exposures at dusk. One of his most memorable photography experiences happened during that trip. He’s also spent 10 days hiking and camping in the Lofoten archipelago (Norway), another gorgeous place seemingly set apart from the world. While there, he was able to create an awesome collection of long exposures, especially of Icelandic waterfalls. The surreal atmosphere of long exposures works exceptionally well with the rugged, isolated beauty of Iceland, which Marco has visited a couple times. One reason he likes long exposures is because they tend to have that mood naturally. He’s happiest with long exposures that have a slightly surreal, ethereal atmosphere. That image is still one of his favorites, though he’s made many since then. He waited until winter, “when the sun is low on the horizon all day,” to get perfect shadows through the dunes and fences. Even his first long exposure, “Passage to the Sea,” was a success, perhaps because he had planned it so carefully. Long exposures are now one of Marco’s biggest strengths. But for the sake of long exposures, he bought a DSLR. “I squeezed everything I could out of it,” he says. He was using a Fujifilm Finepix S6500, which had a great 28-300 MM lens but no bulb mode for long exposures. “I was out every night and weekend shooting, and I quickly realized cityscapes and landscapes were my favorite subjects.”Īt that time, he didn’t have a DSLR yet. Amsterdam offered plenty of beautiful scenes and subjects to photograph. “That’s where my real adventure in photography started,” Marco says. He later upgraded to digital photography (with his own camera) in 2007, when he moved to Amsterdam. Marco Battini has been taking photos ever since he was a kid, using his father’s Pentax MX to capture holidays with his family.
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