How To Shoot Fantastic Light Trails

The city lights up in a rainbow of colours at night. It's the ideal opportunity to put your long exposure photography abilities to the test and snap some light trails. Follow our simple instructions. In no time, you'll be capturing light trails left, right, and centre.

- Sanchit Mishra

What exactly are light trails?

Light trails are one of the finest methods to make your urban night photography stand out. The frantic rhythm of life in major cities is reflected in traffic and automobile light trails. With a fast enough shutter speed, you can freeze moving lights. Alternatively, with long enough shutter speeds, you may capture them as glowing trails.

How to capture light trails?

In terms of photographic equipment, light trails photography is not difficult. Any camera will suffice. The camera is less significant than the location and time of day. If you don't want blurry shots, keep a solid tripod on available.

Camera settings

The following are the ideal camera settings for photographing light trails.

• Shoot in RAW, use the lowest ISO possible.
• Set your aperture to the sweet spot of your lens, which should be between f/4 and f/11, use a shutter speed of 10-30 seconds.
• Check your settings to see if you're getting long trails. Also, ensure that the highlights have not been trimmed to pure white.

You want to preserve some colour in the trails while avoiding regions of pure white that are unsightly.

Because you're using a tripod, it's a good idea to turn off image stabilisation. Bridges and other floating constructions are an exception. Vibrations caused by passing cars might cause camera shaking and damage your shot. Experiment with noise reduction during extended exposures. This will inform you whether or not you should keep it active. This will ensure that your light streak photos are clear and not fuzzy. Keep in mind that the camera will take a second photograph. When you employ this strategy, you will have the same length of time without having to open the shutter. It occurs soon following the first image. This may cause your photography session to take longer.