Light Painting Thread

[Brettus]

I'm trying to make an effort to do more nocotography at the moment and light painting is a big part of that. To be honest, light painting feels like cheating at photography, you start the camera in the dark, wave some lights about in front of it, stop the shutter and you have an interesting looking image.

Instead of just showing off the results that are easier to get than you might imagine I thought I'd document some of the behind the scenes stuff as I'm in the process of receiving a load of new stuff from eBay which I'll use as lightpainting tools.

The first delivery was some bare LEDs I got some green ones and some colour changing ones.

Today I received:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/12/30/u6y8e5yr.jpg

Some battery powered Christmas lights and some colour changing torches.
The Christmas lights will become an orb painting tool for creating floating orbs like this:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3702/11502674523_84e53d6e73.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettnet/11502674523/)
Dual colour orb (http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettnet/11502674523/) by Brettus - Brettnet.co.uk (http://www.flickr.com/people/brettnet/), on Flickr

I'll take some pictures as I go along with making it.

[Brettus]

Forgot, last week I received some more steel wool
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/12/30/herera9a.jpg
Cheap and cheerful but when placed in a whisk or in my case a wire egg cup and set alight with a 9V battery it creates a spectacular effect for very little effort.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2809/11604427944_231a86d705.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/97383585@N06/11604427944/)
IMG_3310.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/97383585@N06/11604427944/) by iBrettnet (http://www.flickr.com/people/97383585@N06/), on Flickr

If you contain it in a shape it looks neat too:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3703/11604122655_fdd4f30131.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/97383585@N06/11604122655/)
IMG_3315.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/97383585@N06/11604122655/) by iBrettnet (http://www.flickr.com/people/97383585@N06/), on Flickr

I'll take a picture later of my holder for this but it literally is a wire egg cup on a length of paracord.

[Brettus]

More goodies turned up at home, just testing the first one out:
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/12/30/a6ebuqup.jpg
I'd rather know now if they are junk or for dry weather only at least. :-)

[Bluepete]

I'm getting not this too. Got some cheap Xmas LEDs battery powered, a couple of old torches, a bike light and so on. Just been practising for now, waiting for some better weather to play out.

Have you seen http://www.michaelbosanko.com/

Very cool photos!

Pete ;)

[Bluepete]

I'm also in the process of upgrading my lens for this and starlight pics. Selling my 18-200 Canon, chopping it in for http://www.tokinalens.com/tokina/products/atxpro/atx116prodxii/ which is sharper than a sharp thing on broken glass!

Have a look at http://www.mauriziopignotti.com/ for simply the best starlight photos!

Pete ;)

[Brettus]

Both very nice links! The light painting one requires some artistic skill which I just don't have ;) I did well enough to write my initials on one of them recently LOL

This is more my intended level: http://www.flickr.com/photos/light_painter/

I just picked up that very lens BP so if you want to give it a try on your kit I'm game for a meet up photo shoot sometime. You might've already tried it or decided but just mentioning :)

I've got a few ideas but one imminent for a star trails shot, I just need the right conditions and timing at home so I can escape for a couple of hours.

The torch in the glass kept going for 30 minutes so I took it out and called that good enough for 99p ;)

[Bluepete]

I've been scouting some ruined mills. Found a few, the plan is star trails over the mill and some light painting too.

How do you rate the Tokina?

Pete ;)

[Brettus]

Ooh nice re mills, sounds like we have similar ideas, mines a castle. will be interesting to see the results.

I really quite like it, really wide even on a crop sensor, the F2.8 means it can get quite a bit of light pretty quickly but also doesn't make it too shallow DOF for star stuff which I worried it would. I've not done many sharpness tests, I've had a couple that've been blurry but I think that was just focusing error heh. The fact it takes 77mm filters is cool too, I'd looked at the Sigma 8-16mm I think it was but it was tricky to bodge filters onto.

[ClunkintheUK]

I have a challenge for you Brettus (or anyone else who wants to give it a try). I don't really have much idea how you would do it either.

Some how light up the strings on a guitar (bass guitar might be more spectacular with thicker strings) and get a shot of them being played. Even better if you can get them on a harmonic.

[Brettus]

Hmm, interesting idea, I'll ponder and see if I can find someone with any kind of guitar to try on first, seen a magazine article that featured one once.
Also reminded me of this:
TKF6nFzpHBU

[Kenzie]

What sort of shutter speed are you talking about to get light trails? I have some lightsaber style things that we use on the Wii.

[Brettus]

Anything from a second up generally works. Sometimes less though depending on the speed of the motion and what you want it to look like, easy to try, just get in a dark room, set the camera to take a picture (even auto mode should work as it'll try and run longer to bring out some detail) and just do some movement in front of the camera. Then it is just experimentation :-)

[Sir Trev]

I have a challenge for you Brettus (or anyone else who wants to give it a try). I don't really have much idea how you would do it either.

Some how light up the strings on a guitar (bass guitar might be more spectacular with thicker strings) and get a shot of them being played. Even better if you can get them on a harmonic.

I just spent a happy half hour in the company of an old friend. My bass guitar has not seen the light of day since we moved to this house twelve years ago and the case was a "smidge" dusty... I concluded that after trying lots of shutter speeds and lighting all you get is a blurred string. The effect you get in the YTube piece posted up is almost certainly a frame rate oddity of video and you don't get that on a still.

Was worth a try but as it's just a blurry string it's not worth uploading.

Sorry.

[mister c]

I just spent a happy half hour in the company of an old friend. My bass guitar has not seen the light of day since we moved to this house twelve years ago and the case was a "smidge" dusty... I concluded that after trying lots of shutter speeds and lighting all you get is a blurred string. The effect you get in the YTube piece posted up is almost certainly a frame rate oddity of video and you don't get that on a still.

Was worth a try but as it's just a blurry string it's not worth uploading.

Sorry.
I tried the same Trev & couldn't get the results neither

[Brettus]

I think you'd need a composite image, one light painting the other as high speed flash shot to capture the strings, then merge them. I'm still not convinced the result would be worthwhile though unfortunately :(

[ClunkintheUK]

Oh well. Worth a shot, and thanks for giving it a go guys. I fear my photography skills are not up to anything like that. (nor my time management skills)

[DanSp]

I played around with light painting once... Sony a580 with stock lens and a remote shutter cord...

Here were my results...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7083/7052023883_d2e4cae747_n.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansp88/7052023883/)
Untitled (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansp88/7052023883/) by dansp88 (http://www.flickr.com/people/dansp88/), on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7095/7052023563_ce4f3f6836_n.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansp88/7052023563/)
Untitled (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansp88/7052023563/) by dansp88 (http://www.flickr.com/people/dansp88/), on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7120/7052023375_c56112f8a2_n.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansp88/7052023375/)
191526_1150104497831020_723731019_6878851_8019095_ o (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansp88/7052023375/) by dansp88 (http://www.flickr.com/people/dansp88/), on Flickr

This was just using the flash on my iphone!

[DanSp]

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7255/7038095539_ca59c14a76_n.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansp88/7038095539/)
Light Poi 2 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansp88/7038095539/) by dansp88 (http://www.flickr.com/people/dansp88/), on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7186/7038095319_ff69502bb0_n.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansp88/7038095319/)
Fire Poi 1 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansp88/7038095319/) by dansp88 (http://www.flickr.com/people/dansp88/), on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7273/6891999690_2a45722e50_n.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansp88/6891999690/)
Fire Poi 3 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dansp88/6891999690/) by dansp88 (http://www.flickr.com/people/dansp88/), on Flickr

[Bluepete]

Bit of a thread resurrection!

A new world record has been set for the number of light orbs in a single exposure.

200 Light Orbs Captured in Single Long Exposure Sets New World Record

http://petapixel.com/2015/02/27/200-light-orbs-captured-in-single-long-exposure-sets-new-world-record/

Pete ;)

[Sir Trev]

That is epic.

[Bibio]

Bit of a thread resurrection!

A new world record has been set for the number of light orbs in a single exposure.

200 Light Orbs Captured in Single Long Exposure Sets New World Record

http://petapixel.com/2015/02/27/200-light-orbs-captured-in-single-long-exposure-sets-new-world-record/

Pete ;)

if the blade poles they are using had one blade shorter then the other would you get an orb within an orb?

[Bluepete]

if the blade poles they are using had one blade shorter then the other would you get an orb within an orb?

Yep, but the upright pole would have to be turned twice to get a full orb.

Pete ;)

[Brettus]

You're not thinking 4th dimensionally (always wanted an excuse to say that)
LEDs either end.
Or you could have 3-4 different colour LEDs on the pole and have as many coloured orbs inside each other ;)