How To Do Daytime Long Exposure Without ND Filters

Daytime Long Exposure

Long Exposure shots are very unique and different ways to express your photographs.

I love to do night photography, especially to shoot long exposure.

but as you know long exposure works on low light because you need to set your camera for some seconds to capture better long exposure shots.

and as you know more light comes into your camera sensor, the more overexposed image you’ll get.

so do you know how to do daytime long exposure??

yes, we can use some good ND filters to do cool daytime long exposure shots, but without ND filters?

that’s impossible, right??

hmmm, I have some solution that helps you to shoot long exposure shots during the daytime.

so if you want to save money or if you’re a student who doesn’t have enough money to buy ND filters, then this is the article which you’re looking for.

now without talking more about it, let’s get started.

How To Do Daytime Long Exposure Without ND Filters

before you know the secret, let me share some good tips to capture better long exposure images.

Things to remember before a shoot

here are some important things that you must need to know and use if you want better results.

1.Tripod

Tripod is a very very important part of your first long exposure photography class.

because if you don’t use a tripod then you can’t able to stabilize your camera for more seconds.

and it’ll give you very bad results.

so you must need a steady tripod or any stand to capture better long exposure shots.

here are some of my favorite list of tripods for beginners that you can use and buy it under 20$ for your next long exposure photo shoot.

now let’s move on to another topic…

Know the meaning of exposure triangle

if you don’t know the meaning of exposure triangle then you’re wasting your time on long exposure photography.

and in the end, you’ll not get the result which you really want.

because without learning this term you can not able to capture long exposure shots.

let’s understand the exposure triangle…

so basically, the exposure triangle is the combination of three different photography terms.

which you must need to know if you’re shooting manually.

the three terms are ISO, shutter speed, and aperture.

if you can manage these three things to capture one single image, then you can capture images anywhere.

no matter its daytime or night.

so if you don’t know anything about these terms then you need to learn them, or at least understood them properly.

here are some useful resources which help you to understand this thing easily…

Learn manual focus

This is also an important part to capture better shots, not only long exposure.

but if you want to capture portraits, sports or street photographs, etc, then for better and sharp results manual focus is a very important key.

because using the manual focus you can manage to focus on your subject in just a second of time.

so, congratulations I think you know almost every single detail to capture better long exposure shots.

now without taking more time, let us know our camera settings for daytime long exposure shots.

Settings for better daylight long exposure shot

these points are only important only if you know the main features of your camera, which I told earlier in this article.

so do enough exercise to master them.

Before you shoot, remember these points…

as we know, this article is to shoot daylight long exposure images.

so, we must need to set our ISO minimum as possible ( ISO 100-300 ).

also, we want foreground and background all in sharp, so we need to set the aperture to max ( around f/22 to f/24 ).

that means your camera lens able to capture all things without any issue.

the third and most important thing to remember…

use manual mode while doing long exposure photography.

because this mode gives you full access to change any camera setting which you like or which are required for that particular situation to capture better shots.

here are some optional things which you can use to perform better long exposure photography.

you can use a remote shutter if you have enough money.

this kind of remote helps you to shoot for more than 30 Sec because mostly all the camera comes with MAX 30 second of exposure.

using remote shutter you can increase that seconds ( using BULB mode ).

where you need to press the shutter button, In BULB, the shutter is open as long as you press the shutter release.

so to manage all that stuff a remote shutter is a very required thing for better image quality.

now let’s get back to the main point…

Ways to do Long exposure shoot without ND filters

I found a total of two different ways to do daytime long exposure without the ND filter.

  1. Using your camera settings
  2. Use photoshop
Actually, there are a total of three methods available to shoot in the daytime, earlier I mentioned some camera settings, which works well if there is less amount of light coming in your camera sensor, so give it try ๐Ÿ™‚

let’s understand the first method…

Camera settings

These camera settings are available almost on every intermediate camera.

if your camera does not contain this mode, then you need to upgrade your camera or you can choose the second option.

so now, let’s find out your camera contain that mode or not.

if you’re a Canon user then on your camera settings set Multiple exposure control to Average.

Daytime Long Exposure

or if you’re a Nikon user then check for Multiple exposure mode in your camera settings, and just turn that on.

Daytime Long Exposure

that’s all you need to do, other things will handle by your camera itself.

what happens behind the scene…

so when you set multiple exposures for average then it’ll capture one single image in different time of span.

and in the end, it’ll give you the combined result as one single image.

if you set your shutter speed to 1/4 sec then using this mode you’ll get shot of 1/4 * 4 ( total 4 shots ) which combined together as one single shot.

that means you’ll get a very quality image plus long exposure shots in the daytime.

let’s move on to another technique…

Using photoshop

This trick is very common and anyone can use it, the only requirement is proper knowledge of photoshop.

or if you don’t have that much time then you need a perfect video that explains proper steps to archive the image which you want.

also, you must need a good PC to run Photoshop, so do remember this thing.

steps to do a long exposure with photoshop in the daytime…

I am not explaining everything, but I want you to understand the process which gives us the final result.

here are the steps…

  1. capture long exposure shots using a tripod ( just follow settings which I suggested earlier ).
  2. capture at list 20-30 photos using shutter speed 0.5 and ISO as low as possible.
  3. that’s it, your work is done.

now just copy and paste your bunch of images into one single folder.

open photoshop and merge a bunch of images in one single image ( may take some time to manage all the stuff together ).

don’t know how to do that? no worries I found one good video which helps you to get your final image.

hope you guys learn something new and important from this article.
Related
and the Cover Photo by Jonathan Beanย onย Unsplash, so thank you for that.
have a good day ๐Ÿ™‚

Hi, I'm Manthan I'm a professional photographer and founder of photographywith.com. this site hosts all of my writing on photography stuff like blogs, reviews, editing, and much more. whatever I learn new, I publish here as a blog with some good and easy examples. Cheers, Manthan

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Want to Improve your Photography Performance? Subscribe and get free access to subscriber-only guides, tips & tricks related to photography for FREE.