Long Exposure iPhone Photography WITHOUT ND Filters

I recently went on a drive to enjoy the beautiful weather up here in northern Idaho. Surprisingly, there were still plenty of trees with colorful leaves still hanging on, so I thought it'd be a great opportunity to take some more Fall colors photos. After pulling off by a picturesque section of the Coeur d'Alene River, I grabbed my gear and began hunting for a photo.

In some cases, I'll grab my iPhone 13 Pro Max and use the camera to scope out potential compositions before ever even taking my camera out. The convenience of using my iPhone is unbeatable in many ways, especially when you consider how far they've come in terms of optics and sensor quality. So, it happened to be the case that I found a shot that I really liked, but I wanted it to be a long exposure. The river was flowing quickly and I thought that a long exposure would be more visually appealing than a traditional exposure. That's when I remembered that I had an app called Spectre, which simulates up to a 9-second long exposure without the need to use a single ND filter. Spectre is made by the same folks who make the absolutely outstanding Halide camera app for iOS and iPadOS, so you know that the quality is going to excellent.

After using Spectre to take a 9-second exposure of the river, it hit me that it'd be a fun idea to film the entire composition process right on my iPhone, showing you exactly what went into getting the photo. Then, I thought it'd be fun to edit that photo in Adobe Photoshop on my computer in my home office. Here's the end result of the photo once I was done editing it in Photoshop.

All in all, I had a lot of fun with this particular video and I hope you enjoy it, too! When you're done, let me know if you like this style of mobile composition and editing video. I've got another one in the works and I think you'll really enjoy that one, too.