Cool Camera Tricks You Can Try at Home: Capturing Motion

DRAGGING SHUTTER TO CAPTURE MOTION 
By Kim Wilson in Burbank, CA
WHAT YOU NEED:
*** A tripod
*** An off-camera flash
*** Your camera
*** A moving subject
*** A soft box or umbrella/wall/poster board to bounce the flash (optional)
THE SET UP:
Put your camera on the tripod and your subject in front of the camera.  It’s that easy. You can experiment with the position of your flash and whether or not you want harsh direct light or softer, diffused, angled light.
Put your camera in Manual mode and set your aperture as far down as you can go. In my case, f22.  Then set the shutter speed for anywhere between 2.5 to 5 seconds.
The flash freezes the person/object and after the flash the shutter stays open, capturing any motion.  In the picture below, I held the guitar as steady as I could and started moving my hands before the flash so my hand is partially transparent and only shows the movement.
Now you try.

[EDITOR’S NOTE:  We’re switching gears this week with a little summer photo fun.  I posted a call-out on Facebook to readers interested in playing with their camera last weekend and received a nice collection of fun camera and light tricks by e-mail this morning.  I encourage you, this weekend, to get your camera out of the bag and give them a try.
And if we’re not friends on Facebook, look me up (http://www.facebook.com/LoriAllenAWAI) and “like” our Great Escape Publishing page, here: http://www.facebook.com/GreatEscapePublishing
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