There is something truly magical about when you can paint with light with your camera. The outcome tends to be unpredictable because light, by definition, is unruly and hard to control. Practicing how to paint with light with your camera successfully will take time and patience, but if you’re looking to create a unique and complex photo result, then light painting is for you.
Before you start creating some fantastic, otherworldly images at night, you will need to know a few of the ins and outs of accomplishing this photography technique.
Photography Tools for How to Paint with Light
Since light painting with your camera is a technique of tools you should already possess as a photographer, it should be easy to gather these items before you head out into the darkness:
Camera: You are going to need to ensure your camera can be set to manual mode and can be set to bulb mode. The manual mode lets you control the settings that the automatic won’t while using the bulb setting allows you to have longer exposure times. You’ll need these settings to adjust the photo exposure and control how long your shutter is open with the bulb setting.
Tripod: This tool is essential since your exposures will be very long, and you want to keep your camera stable by adequately capturing the light.
Light source: There are so many different forms and types of lights you can use to paint with, and you have a lot of creative freedoms! You can use candles, flashlights, lasers, glow sticks (one of my favorite forms), external flashes, and even cell phones!
Stopwatch: When using a lower shutter speed, you don’t have to worry about using a stopwatch or timer. However, when using the bulb setting on your camera, you will have to open and close the shutter manually. If you want to repeat, change, or tweak the photo, you must know how long your exposure is.
(Optional) Color Gels: You can use color gels to alter the light’s tint or add colors to the light you’re painting within your camera.
Camera Settings for Painting with Light
These settings are just examples, and they will vary depending on the ambient light you are starting within your initial scene. You will want to assess your situation and then base your settings. I will list below a few tips to help you accelerate the setting process.
Set your ISO to six stops HIGHER than you’ll eventually use. For example, if you’re going to shoot at ISO 100, you’ll set your ISO to 6400
With your camera’s ISO now set to 6400, you will experiment with how many seconds you’ll need to open your shutter to have the exposure you want. Every second of exposure at ISO 6400 now equals into one minute when you shoot with your ISO set at 100.
Once you’ve found your shutter speed at ISO 6400, you set your camera’s ISO back to 100 as you intended to shoot. Now, you can prepare to shoot with your camera on its tripod and open your shutter. The equation is 1 second = 1 minute when you step your ISO back down from the six stops higher that we started this experiment.
Focusing Your Camera
Now that you’ve found your shutter speed and ISO for your light painting photo, you’ll want to switch your focus over to focusing your camera.
Focusing a camera on a subject at night is tricky! I recommend that you start with focusing your camera by shinning a light on the subject (if applicable) and then turning off the autofocus feature on your camera.
Taking the Shot
By now, you should have found what exposure will be, and your focus is set! Now it’s time to make magic! Painting with light in photography is one of the most unique techniques you can play with because you are only ever partial by your creativity!
Most cameras will allow you to take a long exposure of up to 30 seconds. For any exposures higher than 30 seconds, your shutter speed will switch to “Bulb”. Many photographers use a shutter release cable, a remote control, or a timer. Personally, I like to use the timer option.
Photography Light Painting Techniques
This section might sound repetitive, but I will be going over how you or your subject can use to paint with light in your photo. Here is a little advice from experience to get you started with a few dos and don’ts I’ve learned the hard way.
You shouldn’t stand between your camera and your subject – This can cause a lot of weird silhouettes in the final photo unless you want to have those silhouettes included – best to always stand behind the camera when the shutter is open. That might seem like a “duh” statement but trust me I’ve seen people do it during a photoshoot.
Paint from side to side AND up and down– The grander you can be with your arms and lights, the more your camera will pick up, and the more dramatic the canvas will be.
Wear dark clothes – this will help ensure that your camera isn’t picking up anything but the light you’re painting with in the scene. Again, might seem like an obvious statement but I’m covering all my bases here.
Use a flashlight with a red filter – this is good to have with you when you want to check the settings on your camera without blinding yourself or bringing an outside light source into the image that you didn’t intend to have included.
Use lots of angles – this half the fun of photography is finding new angles! Use angles that you’re shooting from and using fun angles that you’re using the lights while painting.
Keep your light moving – when you slow the beam down, you’ll have “hot spots” in your image, so it is crucial to keep your lights moving the entire time
Keep practicing!
These are just a few tips and tricks that I’ve shared with you on successfully painting with light in photography. But these are just the tip of the iceberg. Get out there and be bold, try new things, be creative! Once you start getting the hang of how to paint with light with your camera, the more you know how to expand your creativity from there!
Half of the fun with photography is experimenting with different aspects of what makes you shine (see what I did there 😉 and helps show off your creativity. In the words of Miss Frizzle (Magic school bus reference there) “Take chances, make mistakes and get messy”.
It takes years to become an expert in just a single field of photography, so don’t get discouraged if things don’t work out for you on the first, tenth or even thousandth shot. Just focus, adjust and try again.
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