DSLR Days

It’s 2006 and I am in the northern Blue Ridge Mountains, hiking up 2-miles from the camping site to capture my first long exposure shot of a waterfall. In my camera backpack, I had my first DSLR with several lenses, several natural density (ND) filters, and a full-size tripod in my hand.

Once I got there, it took me a while to set up the tripod, select the appropriate ND filter, and then wait for the rest of the visitors to clear the camera’s view. I spent close to an hour and returned extremely happy since all my shots looked amazing on the tiny LDC screen on the camera.

When I got back home, viewing the shots on the bigger laptop screen, it was unfortunate to see that most of the shots were shaken since the tripod couldn’t do its job in slippery, muddy, or windy scenarios. I soon realized how many variables are there and how it is not that easy as it seems to accomplish these shots.

iPhone Takeover

Fast forward 17 years, now I am in the southern part of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, with only my iPhone 15 Pro Max in my pocket - no backpack, no tripod. My phone is even guiding me through the hiking trail.

Once I got there, I simply put the camera in Live Photo mode, and snapped as many shots as I wanted, handheld! I was very much out of the way of other visitors and was even able to get to unique spots for better angles of the cascade.

All I had to do was simply enable the ‘Long Exposure’ effect on Live Photos, and voilà, perfect long exposure waterfall shots every time!

How to Apply Long Exposure Effect

Since Live Photo effects only be applied from the native Photos app, simply view within the Photos app and tap on the top left to apply the ‘Long Exposure’ effect as seen below:

Apple uses machine learning frameworks to align and merge multiple frames to create this look. This action is non destructive, you always will be able to remove or change the effect.

Final Result

(Learn more about capturing Live Photos from the official Apple website)

Few Cons

• The final photo is in 9 MP resolution instead of 12.

• Some of the advanced processing such as Deep Fusion and SmartHDR might not be applied to the final photo.

• Only HEIF or JPEG, no RAW or ProRAW option, at least not yet.