Long Exposure Experiments

When I cycle back home from work in the evening there's a view along the way to Linnanmäki amusement park in Helsinki, which is still active in the autumn. During the evening it has a multiple spotlight choreography projected onto the sky. I had an idea to try capture that with long exposure so I took my camera and tripod with me. At the spot it was too early though and just getting dark, but meanwhile I noticed an opportunity to capture a view towards Helsinki center over Töölönlahti.

There were lots of ducks on the bay, but due to the long exposure you can only see a hue of some that were still enough, which looks kinda cool creating an eerie atmosphere.

Later after it got darker I went to a spot to capture Linnanmäki. Capturing the lights wasn't that simple though. With long exposure the spotlights weren't bright enough to be visible, like in the one above with 5 second shutter speed. Didn't attempt with wide aperture and short shutter speed, since what I hoped was a "painted" result, but I might try that next time.

In this shot I kinda managed to capture what I was thinking when I pointed the camera up to the sky. It's not a particularly flashy picture, but the conditions might not allow exactly for the end result I was hoping for due to light pollution. It should be pitch dark for the spotlights to really stand out so they would leave a visible mark for long exposures.