Capturing movement with long exposures: tips from the Redline Challenge winner

Tourist guide by day, light trail photographer by night, Piotr Skrzypiec uses his knowledge of beautiful locations and long-exposure techniques to create stunning landscape photography in Slovenia and beyond. It's unsurprising, then, that he was named the winner of Canon's inaugural Redline Challenge.

The photography competition aimed to push the skills of amateur photographers with the brief, 'light in the dark'. Three of Piotr's images made the judges' final shortlist, and his atmospheric shot of a fog-cloaked viaduct was selected as the overall winner.

Piotr used a longer exposure to turn the sharp headlights of the moving cars into sinuous streaks of colour. Long exposure refers to shooting with slow shutter speeds, which can range from seconds to hours, and results in the blurring of moving objects. The technique doesn't require a specialist camera or lens, and the results can be bold. As well as blurring motion, long exposures are good for maximising the light coming into the camera for the purpose of reducing ISO, which improves image quality.

Here, Piotr revisits the locations of his other shots and offers his tips on how to take similar light trail photos.

Twilight is a far better time to take light trail photos than the dead of night, as the sky will be dark but still hold enough colour to keep things interesting. If it's black and featureless, the photo can feel 'bottom heavy', so start to shoot when there's enough ambient light to record buildings, hills and other parts of the scenery. "It's all about those 20 minutes at the end of the 'blue hour'," says Piotr. "Any later than that, and the shadows will be too dark and the lights too bright to create a balanced shot."

It may sound obvious, but make sure the road you've chosen is visible at the time of year when you want to shoot it. A scene might look promising in winter, but in summer there could be trees blocking the best view.

"It's always good to find an elevated place to shoot from that will allow you to see the road clearly," suggests Piotr. "A few years ago, I returned to this location in the middle of summer. Although you could make out the heart shape of the road at night because of the trails, it was hard to see it clearly because of the vineyard. Since then, they have made a lot of improvements. There's a new platform for photographers, which has enough space for at least 10 tripods. And they have also cut back the vineyard that was in the foreground, so the road's beautiful shape is more visible."

Even though you'll be taking your pictures as night draws in, set up in daylight so that you have plenty of time to frame your shot. "When you want to take a good picture, you have to think about the background and the foreground and how you will fill these areas," advises Piotr.

"It's also a good idea to think of the traffic trail as a guiding line that leads the eye from the foreground to the background. The best opportunity to do this is if you are lucky enough to find an S-shaped road that snakes through the scene to, say, a church or a mountain or an equally obvious focal point."

To ensure that the stationary parts of your image remain sharp in the final shot, you'll need to lock the camera in position on a tripod and avoid touching it during the exposure. "I simply use the camera's two-second self-timer," Piotr reveals. "So, I just check the composition, press the button and two seconds later the exposure starts."

Canon's range of mirrorless and DSLR cameras offer a self-timer function. Piotr also uses the mirror lockup function when shooting with DSLR cameras that have this feature. Once activated, it locks the mirror out of the way and delays the start of the exposure, reducing the chances of any vibrations inside the camera robbing the image of sharpness. "With a mirrorless camera you don't have this problem, though," says Piotr, "as you don't have a mirror!"

The ability to control the length of the exposure is essential. All EOS cameras – from the Canon EOS 4000D to the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV – allow you to record an exposure that's up to 30 seconds long. Shutter Priority (Tv) mode lets you set a precise exposure time (shutter speed), with the camera automatically adjusting the aperture. You can then set your ISO according to the scene.

Shooting in Manual (M) mode gives you control of the aperture in order to achieve the perfect level of sharpness, too. To further customise your settings, Canon's range of full-frame mirrorless cameras such as the Canon EOS RP also feature a Flexible value (Fv) mode. This is essentially a fully automatic mode that lets you take control of the shutter speed, aperture and/or ISO at any point.

You'll need to use Bulb mode for exposures longer than 30 seconds. Some EOS cameras have a 'B' option on the mode dial, but on others you need to select Manual mode and scroll past the 30 seconds shutter speed setting.

While you obviously need a relatively long exposure to render the car lights as long trails snaking through the picture, the precise length varies. Piotr explains, "It all depends on the type of road and the density of the traffic. Usually on a highway, you don't need an exposure of 30 seconds because there are a lot of cars and a lot of light trails. But there are some quieter spots where only a very long exposure will do.

"I always try to use an aperture of f/8 or f/11. It's usually not good to go wider than f/8, as parts of the shot may not be sharp. If you have to increase the ISO to something like ISO800, that's fine. If the image is a little bit noisy, you can work on that when you edit the picture. On the latest cameras, such as the Canon EOS R5 I received as my prize, ISO800 is nothing, and I don't see any noise in the picture at this setting." The EOS R5's ISO range runs from ISO 100-51,200, so ISO800 is a relatively low sensitivity that delivers excellent image quality in low light.

You don't have to use an L-series pro lens to take professional-looking light trail pictures. A compact, lightweight lens such as the Canon RF 24-105mm F4-7.1 IS STM or the RF 35mm F1.8 Macro IS STM is going to be easier to carry, while still giving you sharp, detailed pictures.

"You'll usually be using quite a small aperture in order to get a sharp picture, so you don't necessarily need a lens with a fast maximum aperture, such as f/1.8 or f/2.8," says Piotr. "I always use zoom lenses as they give you more options for framing a scene, but really the choice of lens is not as important as other aspects, such as using a tripod and the volume of traffic. It just has to be sharp, that's all!"

So there you have it. Shooting light trails is a great way to learn how to take control of exposure and to use photography to capture something that isn't visible with the naked eye. It's quite undemanding when it comes to camera equipment, too, but the rewards can be immense – just ask Piotr!

Visit our Redline Challenge hub to see the shortlisted entries and for more tips and advice from the pros.

Written by Marcus Hawkins