Name: Long Exposure iPhone Photography: Advanced Techniques
Uploaded: 2026-01-24T09:32:35.000Z
Duration: 18 min 28 s
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In this video, I'm going to share with you some advanced long exposure techniques so you can capture some truly spectacular long exposures with your iPhone.

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I think you're going to be absolutely blown away by the kind of images we're going to take today.

Now we're almost at the end of the course and I wanted to save the best stuff until the very end.

I think you'll agree that long exposure photography is one of the most exciting things you can do with the iPhone.

For the first section of the video, we're to going going to be taking long exposure photos in the sea.

And after that, we'll head into the city at night where I'll show you how you can do light trail photography with the iPhone.

Now, the reason I wanted to come here today is because of these concrete blocks and I think they're going to provide for some terrific long exposure photography opportunities.

But what's interesting about this day is that there are going to be clouds coming in and out, in and out.

And for this type of photography, it's actually okay to have a cloudy day.

But if the sun does peak out from time to time, that sun is actually going to illuminate those blocks and that could create for some interesting photo opportunities as well.

So I've now opened up the camera app of my iPhone and the first thing I'm going to do is switch to my 2x lens.

As I do that, you'll see that I'm so much closer to this one concrete block.

I wanted to make it as simple as possible.

So I don't want to see the sky, I don't want to see any other blocks.

I just want this one block positioned centrally in the frame.

Now, at the bottom right hand corner, you'll see that live photos is on.

And I'm going to try to keep my iPhone as steady as I can.

And I'll now go ahead and press the shutter.

I'm going to open the photos app of my iPhone and here's the image that we just captured.

I'm going to select long exposure and as I make that choice, you'll see the long exposure image developing and it looks absolutely stunning.

So long exposure is not just for waterfalls.

There are many different kinds of long exposure photos that work really, really well.

With that said, there are a Couple of things I have to consider when I convert my live photos into a long exposure, because what's happening behind the scenes is that the three second video that comes recorded with each live photo gets transformed into a long exposure image.

So that image is really a composite of that little three second video file that gets captured together with the live photo.

And unfortunately that means that the quality of the final image is, isn't going to be as high as it would be otherwise.

So the photo we just created would be perfectly fine for social media and this is a beautiful photo, but

if you want to do some high quality work for print or for an exhibition, for example, then this is probably not going to work.

Another problem is that the length of the exposure is fixed.

Well, for that I can't use live photos because the only option I have with live photos is a 3 second long exposure.

If I want any other exposure time, that's not going to work.

Now the good news is that both these problems can be fixed quite easily using a dedicated long exposure app called Slow Shutter Cam.

But for this app I definitely need to use a tripod.

So I'm going to set up my tripod right now.

Okay, so now my iPhone is in a tripod and I've already opened the slot shutter cam app.

So I need to switch to 2x on the right hand side you'll see that there's this circular icon that says 1x and if I tap my finger there, I'm now switched over to my 2x lens.

And I'm going to quickly adjust composition just a little bit, just like this.

By default, the app is set up in such a way where you're going to get a really low quality image.

So to go into settings, I'm going to tap on this icon at the bottom left hand corner.

And here the first thing I want to change is photo resolution.

We're going to select the largest resolution possible, which is 12 megapixels.

Next up, I want to change the photo file format.

I want to make sure that my photos have more colors and that they take up less space.

So I'm going to select heif at the bottom and that's going to be the high efficiency file format.

And the next thing I want to enable is the grid.

So as I turn that on, I'm going to have those grid lines and it will make it easier to compose my shots.

Another option I want to quickly enable is geotagging.

So that's Going to essentially save the location of my long exposure photos.

All right, so now we have the correct settings.

So I'm going to tap done at the top right hand corner, and

We're almost ready to start shooting, but there's one more thing I need, and

So I'm gonna plug these into my iPhone, and

I'm gonna be able to use these as a remote shutter release.

When I'm gonna hit the shutter, that could actually cause enough movement to cause a blurry image.

And I can prevent that if I just use the volume up button on these headphones.

So at the top left hand corner, you're gonna see this icon.

And if I tap my finger there, I'm gonna have all these capture options.

And at the top, I'm gonna make sure that motion blur is selected.

So that's how much the app is going to blur the motion that happens around my subject.

So I'm going to take that blur strength setting, and

I'm going to take it all the way to maximum.

And for shutter speed, let's see what happens if we do 15 seconds.

I'm going to go ahead and release the shutter using my headphones.

As that circle around the shutter button gets complete, the exposure will be finished.

All you see here is our subject in the middle of this white nothingness.

And clearly selecting the maximum blur strength worked in our favor.

But how do I know what's the correct exposure time?

One way is to just try them all and see what works best.

But another option that I like even better is is to use something known as the bulb mode.

So I'm going to open those settings again, and

in the middle where it says shutter speed, if I go all the way to the right, you'll see that now it says bulb.

Now, with bulb mode, I haven't actually specified the shutter speed at all.

Instead, when I press the volume up button on my headphones for the first time, exposure is going to start, and

it will continuously capture the long exposure until I choose to stop it.

So right now with the bulb mode activated, I'm still capturing my image.

And at this point, I could leave it on for a minute, for two minutes, and

And now you can see this beautiful long exposure.

So right now, I don't know what the next shot is gonna be, but

if I want to find the best composition possible, it makes sense for me to quickly explore the scene by doing a few handheld long exposures where I'm gonna convert the live photo into long exposure.