Hoi An at Night: A Long Exposure Exposé

One of my favorite techniques while photographing at night is the long exposure. While in Hoi An I go out my tripod and tried to capture the city on camera.

Hoi An is beautiful at night, full of hanging lanterns, cobblestone streets, and the paper candle lanterns that it’s famous for. I took the opportunity to setup around the riverfront with my new tripod and my camera set to the shutter priority mode.

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What I love about long exposures is it allows you to see in pictures what you see with your eye at night, and sometimes even more. In case you are wondering, a long exposure shot is where you are essentially taking a single picture for several seconds, allowing the camera to pick up all the light, no matter how dark it is. For most of these, I had my camera set to a 10-30 second shutter speed.

Another fun part about these pictures is that they blur any motion. Since you are taking a picture over several seconds anything moving shows up as a streak or other unique shapes. I think it’s interesting to try these in a busy place because you never really know what’s going to show up.

I love the way this type of picture brings out the details at night and the paints the landscape with all of the colorful lights.

Hoi An was by far our favorite town in Vietnam, and even in most Southeast Asia. The town and the river are truly special at night.

If you looking for additional Vietnam Destinations check out our other posts:

• Getting Fat in Vietnam for $5 a day
• Destination Investigation, Sapa Vietnam
• Destination Investigation, Hue Vietnam
• Full Moon Lantern Festival, Hoi An Vietnam
• 7 things I will not miss about Vietnam
• How to get to Hue from Da Nang