Quick question dude, u know when u take night shots and want the background lights streaky, what's the best way of achieving this, rotating the zoom on the lense during a long exposure shot?

 

Since there's been no reply.... I'd suggest panning is your answer. I'm assuming you're talking about a moving vehicle.

If stationary, use a tripod with a long exposure....

 

Yep, panning and reducing the shutter speed down. Good luck!

 

I did the opposite with this shot in Cancun by 'tripodding' the camera on some scenery and extending the shutter speed to around half a second.

 

K18LLR, these shots are all shot from a tripod using long exposure. The streaking is caused by the moving light source. Set your camera to shutter priority. The shutter speed depends on how fast the background vehicles are moving and how long you want the stripes. Trial and error although I would suggest upwards of 20 secs as this will force a small aperture and hence give you loads of depth of field. Use a remote control or delayed release to avoid shake as you press the button and then keep fiddling until you find the right exposure length for the ambient light and the final effect you want.

Hope this helps

 

cheers guys will try taking some at the weekend, lets see how it goes

 

The easiest way to do this is to take a normal photo then as you're looking at it shake your head really fast side to side...

 

 

You know I'm right Guv... They'll all be trying it now

 

whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo it wooooooooorks....
................feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeling....... siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick

 

so this is the result...

[IMGl]http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w57/K18LLR/MCOUPE/DSC_3494.jpg[/IMG]

 

Ah, I think I see what you were on about now mate. You meant the starbursts on the street lights
Well you seem to have that sorted now so the next thing is to work on your white balance. Your pics look very orange because they're taken under sodium light. You can either shot somewhere that has halogen lights (like costco carpark on the tunnel run) or make white balance adjustments on your camera or in your processing software.

 

Great effort K8LLR & monkey you know too much about photography....any chance of a MSOC photography seminar/meet!!

ps that ZM Copue is baaadd, I always wanted one & test drove quite a few but in the end went for a 350z. Wanted a change as I had same engine in my E36 M3 Evo Cabriolet.

 

yes the lights were very orange indeed in that car park, im going to try messing around with the colour tempreture in photoshop cs

Ricky that mcoupe is seriously quick, hes had it remapped with a whole host of other goodies including a full milltek system, it was running high 12 quarter miles on a bmw santapod day, you will see it in action on saturday night

 

we have somephotography gurus in our midst