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This weekend spectacular Aurora Borealis light shows in the night sky give photographers a great chance to test their skills and capture amazing images. To photograph the Northern Lights, you don’t necessarily need a DLSR or fancy equipment – you do iPhone alone can create pictures for a lifetime.
If you’ve seen artistic photos of waterfalls or rivers, then you’ll no doubt have seen long-exposure shots where the water is deliberately blurred to appear silky smooth, while the surroundings – the rocks and trees – remain sharp. It’s a great technique for creating the impression of motion in a still image, and it used to be something you’d need a DSLR with filters and a tripod for. But a handy feature built right into the iPhone camera lets you take photos that look just as good.
You don’t even need the latest iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max to take advantage of this feature. It works on any iPhone released after iPhone 6.
Read more: Take your best photos with your iPhone
The technique uses Live Photos, a feature that turns a still image into a short animation by recording a few seconds of video when you trigger the shutter. By analyzing which objects are moving, the iPhone captures the motion and blurs it. It’s also able to recognize what’s not moving (a rock or a wall, for example) and tries to keep those objects sharp and in focus. This allows you to capture long exposure images even in bright midday sun without using a tripod or filter. Take that, DSLR.
A standard image taken with the iPhone 11 Pro (left) and the same image with long exposure mode enabled (right).
Here’s how you can do it.
Know what makes a good long exposure photo
Not everything works as a long exposure image. A close-up of a flower blowing in the breeze will just become a blurry mess, while a photo of a static car will remain, well, static.
What you need is a scene that has both static and moving elements. Waterfalls are common sites as the rushing water will be blurred while the surrounding rocks will remain solid. Any body of water would indeed be a good subject for experimentation.
The stock shot (left) looks like any old Disney park photo. But the long exposure (right) transforms it into an ethereal image that really shows the movement in the scene.
You can also experience the lively city streets. The long exposure effect keeps buildings and roads sharp and fixed in the image, but people walking around will be blurred into ghostly figures, which looks atmospheric and dramatic.
The brilliant aurora events this weekend are also a great opportunity for long exposure photos. Because the lights shift so quickly, a long exposure photo can pick up red and green hues that our eyes might not even see.
Turn on Live Photos
Getting a long exposure image requires the motion that is recorded in Live Photo, so it is extremely important that this mode is enabled when shooting. It is located in the upper right corner of the camera screen (when held in portrait orientation) or in the upper left corner (in landscape orientation). You will see an icon of two circles surrounded by a third dotted circle. If there is no line through it, then Live Photos is enabled. If there’s a line through it, tap the icon and you’ll see the message “Live” appear on the screen in a small yellow box.
Make sure this icon does not have a line through it.
Hold steady
Although the iPhone doesn’t require a tripod to get a good long exposure image, you’ll get the best results if you hold the phone as steady as possible while taking the live image. I recommend placing the phone on a wall or other stationary surface while shooting. If you have to hold the phone in your hand, I find that tucking my elbows in close to my body and holding my breath helps reduce motion blur while taking a photo.
It’s also a good idea to take a few shots by pressing the shutter button while holding the position. This will increase your chances of capturing at least one image that is stable enough to create an attractive long exposure.
Create a long exposure
Once you’ve captured your live image, it’s time to transform it into the actual long exposure. Start by opening your image in the gallery app. At the top left you will see a small icon that reads Live with a small down arrow next to it. Tap the arrow and you’ll have the option to turn the image into a looping GIF, a bouncing GIF that plays back and forth, or, down at the bottom, a long exposure.
It’ll take a second or two, but you’ll quickly see every movement in your shot blurred into the dreamlike effect you’re after. You can then zoom in to check if it’s still nice and sharp. Feel free to apply the same effect to other photos you took of the same scene, just in case they turned out better.
If you happen to still be using iOS 14 or earlier, open the image you’ve landed on in your gallery and swipe up. This will bring up a panel called Effects where you can convert the motion in the video into GIF files. Swipe to the end of the effects panel and you’ll see one called out Long exposure. Touch it. But you really need to update your phone to a newer version.
I didn’t intend to take this photo with a long exposure when I first took it, but since it was a live shot, I was able to go back later and turn on the long exposure mode.
Take long exposure photos from existing live images
If you don’t have a view of auroras in the night sky, browse your library to see if you already have other images that would work for long exposure photos. The great thing about using the long exposure tool on the iPhone is that you don’t need to use it while shooting. You can go back and apply it to any live image you’ve used so far.
Maybe you visited Niagara Falls in New York or Havasu Falls in Arizona a few years ago and accidentally activated Live Photos when taking your photos. You can swipe up and enable long exposure on any of these photos. You can even go into your Live Photos album in your gallery to see all the photos you have on your phone that can be transformed into long exposures. My advice? Put on a good podcast, settle into a comfy chair, and see what dreamy footage you can dig up from your library.
Watch this: We review the iPhone 15 Pro Max, 7 months after its launch
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