8 second shutter speed

[xstaciphotography]

The other day I used a slow shutter speed to create that multiplicity type if picture for the first time. It turned out fairly well but when I tried it yesterday during daylight my pictures turned out completely white no matter how I tried to change the settings. What should I be changing? I use a nikon p80 camera and varied my light settings and ISO

[dcclark]

An 8 second shutter speed is SO long that a TON of light will get into the camera, making everything blown out and white. To balance that out, your camera has to make the aperture very small -- this lets in less light. In broad daylight, it's pretty much impossible to make the aperture small enough to get such a long exposure -- I can barely get 1/2 second at f/32, and nobody wants an aperture that small :P. At night, because there is little light, almost any aperture will work.

So, what you should do will vary. Normally I would recommend that a DSLR user get a neutral density filter to absorb more light -- which would allow for a longer shutter speed in the same lighting conditions. But since you have a Coolpix, that may not be possible -- your camera can't take filters. You *could* buy a neutral density filter and jerry-rig some way to hold it in front of your lens. Alternately, you could just wait until you have a low-light situation and play around then.

[Jamesc359]

Or you could take multiple shots at normal shutter speeds and merge them in an image editor.....

[xstaciphotography]

Thank you for explaining why aperture would let in more light. That also helps to explain why some pictures i took outside the other day were bright. I'll just know to try the multiplicity at night. I took a web design class in high school and we played a little with image editing software's but other than that I am completely self taught in that area so I'm still learning how to correctly merge pictures together to do the multiplicity effect that way. I'll have to keep playing around with it because I think the pictures turn out a lot less soft or blurry that way from what I have seen of other peoples. Thanks for all the advice.

[Murtasma]

Merging images should be a piece of cake as long as your not over lapping any area of the file image with two people. Even then it should be fairly easy still unless you are trying to make each multiple shake hands.