Long exposure and subject focus

[Tapdor]

Hi everyone,

I’m after some insights. I tried doing a nighttime shoot with the aim of long exposure and using my wife as the subject however she kept turning out blurry but the background worked as expected. 

I was using a tripod, changed the auto focus, lowered the ISO down to 80 but couldn’t get it to work on the X-S20.

Using the 18-55 it maxed out at F4. Is it that the lens wasn’t strong enough? Should I have added some extra external light? 

I’m wanting to try and achieve something like this 

Thank you in advance 

 

Edited February 20, 2024 by Olaf W.
Photo removed due to copyright reasons

[jerryy]

Your lens is okay for this. One common technique is to use a flash in taking the photograph. The light from the flash freezes the subject while the longer shutter speed allows the background motion blurring. It takes a lot of practice and patience.

Use your search engine to look up long exposure portraits. You should find many articles with examples and probably quite a few demonstration videos. Best wishes.

p.s. Welcome to the forum.

[Tapdor]

Hi Jerryy - that’s amazing ! 
 

Would the built in flash be sufficient or should I explore a 3rd party flash?

I tried searching YouTube previously but were using the wrong search terms so I’ll defiantly try again using your suggestion.

And thank you, looking forward to spending time on the forums 

[jerryy]

I suspect you will get better results for what you said you intend to do by using external flashes. Fujifilm, Godox and Profoto all make flashes compatible with your X-S20. Prices vary with what are included as features.

[jerryy]

You might also try searching using the expression: dragging the shutter.

I do think you will get better results using an external flash, but the built-in one can give you an idea of how things like that work.

Let us know how your results go.

edit: corrected spelling mistakes.

Edited February 21, 2024 by jerryy

[Tapdor]

Ok great.

I’ll try the built in flash to ensure I’m on the right path then look to invest in an external flash. 

I’ve heard about Godox so I’ll do some further research.