Intentional Camera Blur

[Birma]

I have seen this done before, typically with trees. I was inspired to give it a go last weekend when out in the meadows. There is lots to experiment with in terms of focus, aperture, shutter speed etc. Here are a couple of my favourites. I like the way the colour of the meadow and flowers are given an impressionistic feeling.

2014 Joan's Hill Farm - Blurry-graph Meadow 2 by Birm, on Flickr

2014 Joan's Hill Farm - Blurry-graph Meadow 3 by Birm, on Flickr

A99 with 70-400 G mk 1

[jbtaylor]

Keep going.

[bakubo]

Very nice and impressionistic. Like them!

[the_hefay]

Interesting. I experimented with that awhile back. I need to go back and look at them and see what I think of them now.

[Birma]

Thanks for the encouragement guys, I will certainly give it another try

[the_hefay]

I finally found the ones I took. Turns out it was further back than I thought. Mine are pretty pathetic when compared to yours though.

[Greg Beetham]

Pretty smudges Birma, I was surprised there wasn’t less green than it turned out to be, maybe poppies or bluebells might be worth a try with that technique?
Greg

[Birma]

Thanks, Greg I agree, it would look great on a whole frame of colour. I definitely want to try this again and refine / improve it.

[Greg Beetham]

You can also put the camera on a tripod and with a slow shutter using a zoom lens zoom out while the shutter is timing the exposure, you get a sort of radial smudge effect, and you could move side to side with higher magnification with a slow shutter speed as well. Also there is painting with a flash, you can have the camera on a tripod in a very dark location and walk around out of field with a flash and ‘paint’ bits and pieces with the flash with repeated flashes.
You need a flash that Sony and Minolta stopped making though, one with a built in exposure meter and sensor (Metz) and an ability to set it to the same f-stop and ISO as the camera is using.
Greg

[mvanrheenen]

Those are certainly different. Nice change of creative aproach.

Mark

[sury]

You can also put the camera on a tripod and with a slow shutter using a zoom lens zoom out while the shutter is timing the exposure, you get a sort of radial smudge effect, and you could move side to side with higher magnification with a slow shutter speed as well. Also there is painting with a flash, you can have the camera on a tripod in a very dark location and walk around out of field with a flash and ‘paint’ bits and pieces with the flash with repeated flashes.
You need a flash that Sony and Minolta stopped making though, one with a built in exposure meter and sensor (Metz) and an ability to set it to the same f-stop and ISO as the camera is using.
Greg

Greg, You can paint with light with the camera in bulb mode (at least 30 sec shutter ) on tripod and paint with light. I have done that couple of years ago and it worked. In fact, I covered my flash light with a facial tissue paper to diffuse the light. Now that I have a intervelometer of sorts, I have a couple of ideas that I want to explore. Stay tuned. Andy is inspiring.

With best regards,
Sury

[Greg Beetham]

Greg, You can paint with light with the camera in bulb mode (at least 30 sec shutter ) on tripod and paint with light. I have done that couple of years ago and it worked. In fact, I covered my flash light with a facial tissue paper to diffuse the light. Now that I have a intervelometer of sorts, I have a couple of ideas that I want to explore. Stay tuned. Andy is inspiring.

With best regards,
Sury

Yes Sury you need to have the shutter open for that light painting deal and therefore the ambient must be very dark, I saw a photo of a giant cavern maybe 30 years ago done with that technique, it looked pretty good. I remember the time you were did it and I thought they were quite good shots also, I don’t know what flash you were using though, if you use a Metz you can dial it to any kind of exposure you want as it can expose independently, it doesn’t particularly have to agree with the camera.
Greg