longer exposure.....or slow shutter speed?

Well, yes and no. With the shutter release cable you can just hold it down as long as you want if you set the shutter speed to "bulb". Bulb is the last shutter speed setting. If you don't use the "bulb" setting when you press the button on the cable release it will just use whatever shutter speed the camera is set to at that time.

stoph wrote in post #3913974
Well, yes and no. With the shutter release cable you can just hold it down as long as you want if you set the shutter speed to "bulb". Bulb is the last shutter speed setting. If you don't use the "bulb" setting when you press the button on the cable release it will just use whatever shutter speed the camera is set to at that time.

Or with the much more expensive TC-80N3 you can set the timer on the release itself.

Mark

tomdlgns wrote in post #3913871
no, i meant a timer on the camera....

so i can set the settings i want and then set a 5 or 10 second timer and let it snap pics...this way it wont have any movement from me pressing down on the camera to take the shot.

From a terminology standpoint, that's simply 'shutter speed', and not a 'timer'. An 'interval timer' fires shots at a selected frequency or period. The timer Mark mentioned is another way of controlling shutter speed, too.

PacAce wrote in post #3909634
If you want a picture of a car that has a trail of light behind it, what you will need to do is artificially illuminate the car with a flash. If you use the flash in the normal way, you'll get a picture of a car with the light trails in front of it. To get a more "normal" looking car with the light trail behing the car, you need to set the flash to 2nd curtain sync which causes the flash to fire just before the shutter closes instead of immediately after the shutter opens.

Or, you could have the car drive backward, and use normal flash, if you don't have 2nd curtain sync.

tomdlgns wrote in post #3915328
how is something like this done?

it looks like the car is moving and so are the lights in the background, but the car is very sharp and clear...

Without seeing an example of what you mean, I'd say it's most likely a technique called "panning" where you slow down the shutter speed enough to where as you pan the camera to follow the subject you blur the background but keep the subject sharp.

tomdlgns wrote in post #3915947
can someone tell me who i can contact or who can tell me more about this picture? (post 30 for ref.)

i showed it to an acquaintance and they said that this shot is impossible and that it was done in a studio.

you can contact jdmoto on this site since he is the one that actually shot this picture (it is in the POTN book that you should buy )

The technique used here is to mount the camera on a long arm attached firmly to (usually) the underneath of the car. Then the car is slowly moved while the camera exposes for a second or two. The camera has moved with the car, which therefore looks like it hasn't moved, while the background lights are smeared into lines. Finally in image editing software, the long arm is edited out of the image.

Sounds simple, but takes much expertise to get a result as good as the example you chose. Don't let that stop you giving it a go though!

tomdlgns wrote in post #3971961
ok now that i have my camera i am struggling a little bit with this...

when i set the exposure to anything over 5 seconds the picture is pure white. obviously it is getting too much light...

can i only over expose a picture in low light?

i think my camera settings were as follows

M mode
no flash
iso 1600
5 second aperture

very, very white/bright.

You are right in that you're getting too much exposure - what you need is to understand exposure just a little more - and how iso, aperture, and shutter relate to your final exposure. You are getting lots of white, so obvious over exposure. Correct for this by:

a) reducing the shutter speed - but given you want long shutters to give you your effect:
b) reduce aperture (larger f/ number) -this narrows the aperture reducing amount of light hitting the sensor.
c) reduce iso - this reduces 'sensitivity' of the sensor to light.

I suggest doing both b) AND c), since both will give you other benefits beyond getting your intended affect (increase DOF, reduce noise).

You can overexpose a picture in any light - just leave the sensor exposed to light for a long enough time. The key to photography is balancing the shutter speed, the aperture, and the ISO setting. Generally, if you increase the shutter speed (use a faster shutter speed), you need to either open up (use a smaller number/larger opening) aperture or set a higher ISO to maintain the same exposure. You can't just vary one of the three and expect things to stay the same. Try, outside on a bright day, ISO 200, Manual, 1/200 sec. and f/16 aperture. YOu should get a decent exposure that way. Or set the camera to P mode, take some pictures and see what settings the camera selects.