have you tried light paintings?

DinoThePhotoGuy · Feb 20, 2015

How do you do it?

unpopular · Feb 20, 2015

wait for the sun to set, open the shutter and wave a flashlight at the subject. always seemed kind of gimmicky to me for anything serious, but might be fun to try out.

If your camera doesn't have a T setting you can get a remote from China that will do it for about 20 bucks. T (for Time) is like B for (Bulb) except that it works like a "push-on/push-off" switch.

DinoThePhotoGuy · Feb 20, 2015

unpopular said:
wait for the sun to set, open the shutter and wave a flashlight at the subject. always seemed kind of gimmicky to me for anything serious, but might be fun to try out.

If your camera doesn't have a T setting you can get a remote from China that will do it for about 20 bucks. T (for Time) is like B for (Bulb) except that it works like a "push-on/push-off" switch.

Thanks......I will try that.

ps. I like your signature. But why do you feel that way?

Buckster · Feb 20, 2015

unpopular said:
always seemed kind of gimmicky to me for anything serious, but might be fun to try out.

American Pride And Passion - The Photography of Eric Curry

Eric Curry - Google Search

Amazon.com Painting with Light Lighting Photoshop Techniques for Photographers eBook Eric Curry Kindle Store

Buckster · Feb 20, 2015

By the way, don't miss his videos, like this one:

Rick50 · Feb 20, 2015

I have Eric's book. Good stuff!

unpopular · Feb 20, 2015

Buckster said:
unpopular said:

always seemed kind of gimmicky to me for anything serious, but might be fun to try out.

Click to expand...

American Pride And Passion - The Photography of Eric Curry

Eric Curry - Google Search

Amazon.com Painting with Light Lighting Photoshop Techniques for Photographers eBook Eric Curry Kindle Store

Yes. I have seen it. Not really my cup of tea. I fee like the technique calls attention to itself.

Derrel · Feb 20, 2015

I did a fair bit of light painting in the mid-1980's, using a Vivitar 285HV flsh unit and a Quantum brand external lead-acid battery, which allowed me to do really FAST, multi-pop flashes, to light larger building facades with multiple flash pops. I worked almost exclusively at f/8, with ISO 100 speed Kodak Ektachrome slide film in a Nikon FE-2. One of the handier things about using flash as opposed to continuous light is that, in the dark, you can literally see the "pattern" or "spread" of the light, from the center out to the edges, so you get a pretty rapid, mental picture, an image if you will, of where the light has hit. After a bit of practice, you develop a pretty good ability to aim the flash so as to be able to to produce a pretty uniform wash of light over a scene with say 10, or 15, or 20 pops of flash.

One thing to keep in mind, from my experience, on many buildings, I think it's much easier to turn the flash "sideways", since the beam is taller than it is wide; with the flash sideways, the beam is taller than it is wide, and it seems easier to me to paint from right-to-left, and also to paint with the beam "tall-ways". The 285 HV flash has only three zoom positions, which is fine, and makes it easy to develop a feel for the beam spread pretty easily. Also, keeping the f/stop at f/8 adds consistency, as does using the same ISO level. I like f/8 at night.

unpopular · Feb 20, 2015

Watching the video Buckster posted is pretty cool. It's better to do it that way. Reminds me of how modern 3d animation lighting is done. (still not a fan of Curry, but an interesting approach)