Long exposure?

End of last year, i bought a magazine named Digital camera. There is a lot of information and also beautiful pictures taken by amateur or semi-amateur photographers around the world. Page by page, then come into one of section, Long exposure. I didnt know what the real meaning of it. What came through into my mind was, the technique which use long shutter speed. And then, there got one picture looks like this with blurry line movement:

Source: adib.wahab Flickr 

I looked at picture like this with the moving effect, and then i said, "This one is easy. They put camera on the tripod and twist it". How stupid i am that time. It wasnt like what i thought. It more than that which need more technique. After that, i kept searching about star trail in the internet and then i know that i'm totally wrong. Since then, i excited about this star trail and lead me to bought some equipments, trying to capture those star trail.

There are many things you can do with long exposure. You can look some of good picture of long exposure here. For example, star trail and light painting. One of what i'm doing now is star trail capture. It is really fun!! Here, i'll share with you what you need for long exposure. Before that, you need some of gadget to do long exposure such as:

1. Camera with bulb mode- Nowadays, all the digital camera (except compact camera) such as DSLR or SLR have this kind of mode. You need it because it allow you to set different exposure when you press the shutter. You can set it up to several hours. However, keep in mind that mirror of camera might get hot! 
2. Tripod-I bet, you cant hold your camera up to 30minutes. What you can do is bu one tripod! Cheap one fine, but if you really need and always use it, just buy a good quality one. There got two type of tripod which is pan head and ball head. Both type of tripods have pros and cons. 
3. Shutter release- One of important equipment that you must have. When you press the shutter in bulb mode, you have to keep pressing it as long as the shutter open. Therefore, this shutter release can help you in this. Go find one in ebay or local camera store. 

After you got all of these, then you can start playing with long exposure. It is really FUN!!

 Selamat Mencuba!! =P