Suggestions for long exposure photos

[leehughes]

Hi,

Am new to photography and I have a group of friends meeting me on a beach on saturday night. Am taking my camera down and hopefully gonna get some good shots of them doing fire poi and juggling etc.
much like these photos
Burning Man Photography | BURNBLUEDOTCOM | Photography, Art & Design by Toby Keller

any advice for me?

Am using a canon 400d with 10-22mm lens I also have 75-300mm lens and also tripod and that switch which allows you to control shutter speeds, I forget the name now sorry..

I know general experimenting is important but I need advice on dof and stuff like that..

Thanks

[nowonder]

Do you have a good external flash? Bring it!

IF you look at the photos you linked to, they clearly used a speedlight. What you want to do is set the camera to manual, take a long exposure (you gotta experiment to find the ideal) and then have the flash go off as a "Second Curtain Flash", so it will go off once at the end of the long exposure to capture the people with minimal blur.

It's a fun technique, don't be afraid to experiment. Oh, if you will need a tripod if you want the background to be steady too.

My example from the 4th of july, without a tripod...

[leehughes]

ahh wicked..

I shall look into external flashes..

My main focus is to get the background as crisp and clear as possible. Am going to do it on a beach at sunset . I think the contrast in colours will be interesting.

Will the external flash help me in this?

Thanks again for your advice

[nowonder]

Originally Posted by leehughes

ahh wicked..

I shall look into external flashes..

My main focus is to get the background as crisp and clear as possible. Am going to do it on a beach at sunset . I think the contrast in colours will be interesting.

Will the external flash help me in this?

Thanks again for your advice

The external flash probably won't help with the background... to keep it as sharp as possible, I would use a good tripod and probably use the timer to trigger the shot, or a remote control if you have one.

The flash is good for freezing the people. You don't even need fancy triggers to use them, with a long exposure shot you can trigger the flash manually to "freeze" a person.

Have fun, and post back with your results!
--nw

[aesoprock00]

I asked a similar question here at DPS a while back and got some great responses. check out this thread:

Photographing fire spinners