Technique question...or could be equipment!

[southrndarlin]

First off, I appreciate any help that anyone can offer. My goal is to photograph some glow in the dark images. Crazy, maybe. My issue is getting it to show up. I know my first mistake was not enough glow sticks. My second problem came in when my camera ( a Canon EOS 50D) would not cooperate. If you know of a technique or a lens i need to use, please help! Thanks!

 

[Espike]

Can you upload one of your shots so we can get a better idea of what you mean?

 

[imagemaker46]

Tripod and a long exposure.

 

[southrndarlin]

Tripod and a long exposure.

Any suggestions on what my f/stop and shutter speed should be?

 

[imagemaker46]

You should just play around with them, start at 5.6 15th second, go to 5.6 1/8th second, just keep making the exposures longer until it works. Try at f8 and 1/15th etc, it's all about just playing around with it, as long as you're talking about objects that aren't moving and the camera is on a tripod, you should figure out the exposures you need, and hopfully end up with what you want.

 

[southrndarlin]

Thanks for your help. I'll start with trial and error and see what happens.

 

[Dillard]

This can be achieved with a single glowstick. I played around with a little light painting a while back and found that one single stick is doable

 

[DiskoJoe]

****ing spam bs

 

[sovietdoc]

****ing spam bs

Is there something you want to tell us?

 

[southrndarlin]

This can be achieved with a single glowstick. I played around with a little light painting a while back and found that one single stick is doable

Do you mind if I ask what kind of glow sticks you used? We bought the coleman outdoor ones and they weren't as bright as I'd hoped. We originally tried to do glow in the dark bubbles but that failed miserably.

 

[Dillard]

I purchased a pack from Walmart. They are located in the celebration section! We had a blast letting the girls spell their names during a long exposure shot!

 

[scorpion_tyr]

If you want the glowstick, and only the glowstick showing up and not any light from the glowstick bouncing on the ground and such use a very low ISO such as 100-200. I would go with about f/8 for starters, and if you're getting too much background detail or something use a smaller aperture. After those two are set I would adjust the shutter speed to whatever it needed to be. Don't be afraid to go bulb if you need to. Depending on your shutter speed and ambient light you may need to move the glowstick very very slowly. Sometimes if you move it too fast it won't show up.

 

[unpopular]

use your spot meter with exposure compensation.

lord people. it's not rocket science (<-not directed at the OP)

 

[o hey tyler]

use your spot meter with exposure compensation.

lord people. it's not rocket science (<-not directed at the OP)

Its easier if you set it up in manual.

 

[unpopular]

I agree. Spot meter+Manual mode, ±0-+1EV for deeply colored glowsticks, +1.5 for the generic yellow kind, +2 - +2.3 for bright white. Maybe a little more if the spot is biased by the dark background.

But Av mode would work fine, too. Preset for DOF and compensate appropriately.