AverageInPost

Project information

This script digitally recreates a night-photography technique that requires long exposure times to average out the reflections off a water body, creating the illusion of a closer-to-flat surface.

Needless to say, the photos should be well aligned for better results. The samples were taken using a cheap tripod for mobile phones, so nothing too fancy.

Phone camera users may have to overcome two different issues while trying to do the long-exposure technique. Some cameras flat out do not allow for very long exposures: a midranger I have does not go beyond 1/12 sec, and another older midranger goes up to 0.4 sec. A lower-midranger I also have, however, happens to allow up to 30 sec. It is a tossup from phone to phone, as this is not the typical usage our devices are tuned for. This lack-of-long exposure is what the present script tackles by averaging a burst of regular short-exposure pictures.

The second issue is that while cameras may have the ability to tune the light intake, via the diaphragm, phone cameras typically cannot. The long exposure needed for the averaging-out to take place can result in a burned image parts. This can be mitigated by using a Neutral Density (ND) filter, some of which come as part of phone-camera addon sets. Another alternative is to directly work with short exposures, take a burst of pictures and apply the averaging process implemented in the present script.

For comparison purposes, find in the TrueLongExposure folder an image made with the long exposure method and the ND32 filter.

photography