Long Exposure Photography on the Amsterdam Canals

It's been a while since I uploaded a long exposure, so I really need to get one up again.. and with my recent trip to Amsterdam and you can be sure I did a few long exposures! So here we go!

This is long exposure in one of my favourite areas of the city. It's not far from Museumplein (museum square) near the Rijksmuseum. There are a series of lovely streets and canals there that have cute little amsterdam houses, trees and bushes and since its an intersection point for the canals there are more bridges than usual.

Then when you turn a corner, you come to my favourite restaurant in Amsterdam (more on that on another day) where you take a left turn and at the next set of bridges you have yet another intersection (this photo). Lots of bridges and plenty of canal boat tour traffic.

For this shot I used my trusty 50mm Zeiss (as it was all I had with me) to see if I could get a good long exposure. I think it did pretty good, though I faced a few challenges. Due to luggage restrictions I only brought a gorillapod with me instead of a full-sized tripod. This had its advantages (portability) but it did mean getting down on my hands and knees to position the camera and make sure things were properly in focus.

Being so low to the ground also mean that a few elements made their way into the shot that I didn't particularly want (see foreground). It did give me a more unique perspective that I haven't shot from before.

In the end I was quite pleased with the outcome of this shot, and I like the smooth light trails from the canal bought that passed through.