Long exposure shots

[carulli]

Ive googled and googled and googled only to find one application for taking long exposure photos, its called 'exposure' but it is only a free trial. is there any free applications that will allow me to take long exposure shots with my webcam? Even better would be an application for my n95that allows me to take long exposure shots.

 

[randomlugia]

Does the free trial work? I might buy it if it works...

 

[laserlover]

i think the long exposure is a hardware type of thing on a camera not a software

 

[Event_Horizon]

i think the long exposure is a hardware type of thing on a camera not a software

That's correct. Exposure times are literally the amount of time the camera's sensor allowed to collect light, so you need a camera designed to have long exposure times. The next best thing you could do is take a whole bunch of pictures of the exact same thing, and then combine them all together, which gives a final result of adding the pixel brightnesses and giving you a brighter image. I'm not sure exactly what software is available to do this automatically, but you can combine the pictures manually in photoshop by sticking each one in its own layer and setting their blend mode to "add"

 

[Bionic-Badger]

You need special webcams to do that. Cheap-ass webcams like those you get on DX will not work. You need something like a Logitech Quickcam or Phillips webcam. Then you need to use software made for astronomy, like this: http://www.burri-web.org/bm98/index.htm

The webcam often ends up costing > $50. You might just want to look for a cheap Canon digital camera on eBay for that price and use that instead, as you'll get a much better photo and they support long exposures.

 

[carulli]

thanks i will look into a cheap camera.

 

[lamborgini8]

I think the N95 can do long exposures, up to 4 seconds I think it was.

I have the same phone but havent really tested out the cameras manual mode but I remember seeing an exposure setting in there.

 

[ch053n]

Sorry to say but hardware is controlled by software so there is a way to take long exposure shots, ...
.. but the hardest thing is to find a software wich allows to do so.. if any .. DIY !