Since spiking COVID-19 numbers have kept me off the hiking trails, I decided to try light trails instead. Sometimes the best way to learn is to experiment, so I snapped about fifty images in my office-turned-studio and sixty outside, shortly after dusk.
My app would open the shutter for up to one second at a time, which was a good start while I learned to sling battery-powered Christmas lights around.
I captured these shots with an iPhone 12 Pro Max and Camera+ 2.
Outdoor tests
capture the constellation of Orion.
Indoor tests
For most of my tests indoors, I set the lights on a spinning office chair and practiced managing it while holding the camera. That didn’t work, so I set up a tripod and set the app’s timer to take a photo three seconds after I tapped the button.
Lessons learned
After an evening of vigorous tests, my index finger started to develop a blister from spinning the lights quickly and bare handed. I didn’t expect gloves would be important equipment.
While shooting outdoors, I used the app’s 10 second timer to let me get far enough after tapping the button. After experimenting, I learned to set a separate timer for 13 seconds to ensure that the one-second shutter had closed.
Next time I’ll play with timing and another app like Slow Shutter Cam.
