I took advantage of my new Monday telecommuting day by going to the gym (laugh), going to the store to pick up a loaf of bread, and by pulling into the Methuen Music Hall parking lot to do a couple more long exposure pics of the Spicket River.
This time the plan was to take the same pic multiple times, using different exposure times. First though, my house has central air. The AC was on most of the night. When we woke up today it was pretty chilly inside. Outside, however, it was already pretty muggy. Do the math… cold inside plus muggy outside equals foggy camera lens. Grrr.
Before I could start the experiment though, I had to rush through de-fogging things so that I could grab a picture of our friend the huge ass heron, who was just up river from me. He hung around for quite a while. He’s a good guy (assuming he’s a he and not a she, in which case she’s a good gal).
Next we have the just-when-you-thought-you-knew-what-you-were-doing moment where I forgot that I had the ISO setting up really high from yesterday. Woops.
Now that the silliness was over, I could begin the experiment. First I pointed the camera at the little waterfall and took four pictures. The first was a 30 second exposure.
The second was a 20 second exposure.
The third was a 10 second exposure.
And finally, a 1 second exposure.
Cool! Can you see the differences? Longer exposure means more light entering the lens and hitting the sensor. It also means more pronounced blurring. Shorter exposure means less light and less blurring. You can actually see it! I can’t decide if I prefer the 30 second or the 20 second.
Next I turned the camera down river toward route 28 where the river goes under the road. Again, four pics with four different exposure times.
30 seconds.
20 seconds.
10 seconds.
And finally, one second.
Again, the differences are pretty clear. Can you see the blurred cars on the bridge in the 10 and 20 second pics? I was so focused on the river that I didn’t even think of the road. Pretty cool.
Now that I’ve done this, I need to figure out what to do next. There’s always the Merrimack River, right?
Inside the Red Head's Head 