Long exposure photography has long been an interest of mine since I’ve been taking photographs. In particular I love taking long exposures at night to enhance the overall scene. However with the ever-so-advanced iPhone cameras coming out year after year, creating long exposures on my Nikon has become more and more tedious and sometimes more a task.

With my Nikon, I no doubt need a sturdy tripod that can withstand the weight of my camera and lens. Depending on the scene in front of me, I will need a Neutral Density filter to filter out enough light so that I can get a reasonably long exposure during the day. Otherwise, I will have to wait until the light goes down to be able to take any sort of decent long exposure. Once the shooting scenario is found, I then need to ensure that I don’t move the camera throughout the duration of the exposure. This includes any external camera shake or vibrations from the slap of the shutter, which often yields in the use of a shutter release cable, and the “Mirror Up” mode.
With my iPhone however, I only need a simple lightweight tripod that can fit in my shirt pocket, and a single app. That’s it! No filters, cables, or large and heavy tripods. Often times, the long exposures coming out of my iPhone are very impressive even though I will admit these are not true long exposures per se (iPhone long exposures are created by overlaying a number of photos on top of each other, rather than truly leaving the shutter open for a long period of time).
The quality of the resulting photo, however, is still a big factor in why I like to use my Nikon for photographs. An iPhone, no matter how advanced the app or camera is, still cannot compete with the quality of a dSLR camera. And that’s why when I travel, I still carry around my heavy and bulky Gitzo full sized tripod, cable release, filters, and multiple lenses so that I am prepared for any long exposure photos.
When will I eventually succumb to fully relying on my iPhone for photography? Only time will tell, but for now, I still do admire my Nikon and its ability to take fantastic photographs.