How to shoot light painting photography, and what skills are there?

Will light painting photography get cool results? Want to know the skills of light painting photography, in order to shoot super-ideal images at night? In this article, I will share all the knowledge about how to take good light painting photography.

What is light painting?

Light painting is a kind of photography. It uses a mobile light source (such as a flashlight) to add light to the subject when taking long-exposure photos. Painting with light beams, scenery or objects can be lifelike. Light painting requires a lot of patience and practice to achieve practice.

Guanghui photography tool

Before you start light painting photography, you need to make sure that you have the right tools:

Camera-Any digital camera that can be set manually, including light bulb mode.

Tripod-one of the most important tools for making light painting. In most cases, the shutter will open for a few minutes, so it is very important for the camera not to move during the exposure.

Shutter release-Use cable release or remote shutter release to start exposure. If none of them are used, please use the camera's self-timer function to start shooting. It is very important not to touch the camera or tripod during exposure.

Stopwatch-Stopwatch or other timed exposure methods are useful, because most light painting exposures will use bulb mode.

Light source-Many different types of light sources can be used for light painting. These light sources are your "brushes", which may include flashlights, flashlights, lasers, electric heating rods, flashlights, mobile phones and even candles. Almost everything that can produce light can be used for light painting. Please note that different light sources will produce different colors of light. For example, LED light sources will produce cooler (blue) light, while halogen light sources will produce hotter (orange) light.

Colored glue-colored glue can be used to change the tone of light and add color to paintings.

Camera settings

Now, let's look at the best camera settings for light painting:

Mode shooting in manual mode allows you to set the shutter speed and aperture.

Image quality–Set the image quality to RAW to capture as much information as possible.

White balance-If you want to balance the artificial light source, choose the white balance setting of incandescent lamp or tungsten wire. However, sometimes trying other white balance settings may produce some interesting lighting effects. If you want to keep the primary color of artificial light source, daylight white balance is a good starting point.

ISO–use a lower iso, such as 100.

F- Aperture or Aperture-Decreasing to f/8 or f/ 10 will give you greater depth of field and longer shutter speed.

Shutter speed–Set the shutter speed to light bulb mode (the final shutter speed will depend on the ambient light intensity in the scene).

LCD brightness-reduce the brightness of LCD preview, because the normal setting is too bright at night, which will make you look bright when the image is actually underexposed.

Histogram–Use the histogram to check the exposure. If the histogram is severely left, your image will be too dark.

Image Stabilization–Set to Off. When the camera is placed on a tripod, turning on the anti-shake function will actually blind the camera or lens, resulting in blurred images.

Long exposure noise reduction–it is recommended to set it to "Off". You can set it, but this will double your exposure time (because the camera will make a second black exposure to help eliminate noise). If the camera is set to a reasonable ISO, the noise level will be low enough in most cases, so there is no need to reduce the noise inside the camera. However, it is a good idea to check your noise level in advance. Some old cameras may need to set this setting to "On" to obtain an acceptable noise level.

Start with ambient light.

The first step is to determine the correct exposure of any ambient light in the scene before the actual lighting drawing. Try shooting at shutter speed for three to four minutes before shooting to determine the basic exposure settings.

Here are some tips to help speed up the process:

1. Set the ISO to be six steps higher than the planned final ISO. For example, if you plan to shoot with ISO 100, please set ISO to 6400.

2. When the camera is set to ISO 6400, please conduct experiments to find out the number of seconds required for good exposure. The exposure time of ISO 6400 per second is equal to that of ISO 65438 for one minute +000.

3. After determining the correct shutter speed under ISO 6400, set ISO to 100 and get ready for exposure in a few minutes (not seconds). (Many cameras have a minimum ISO of 200, so ISO 6800 will be 6 levels higher. If the minimum ISO of the camera is 50, ISO 3200 will be 6 levels higher. )

Exposed to ISO 800 for 30 seconds. For this picture, the ISO sensitivity is improved and the exposure time is shortened to 30 seconds, because a long exposure time will lead to obvious blur on the stars.

Correct focus

It is an important step to focus the camera correctly-in the dark, the easiest way to get perfect focus is to determine the focus position and light the light source in the scene.

Then, use autofocus to focus the light.

Finally, switch the lens from autofocus to manual focus (so that your focus will not change).

But pay attention to:

If you move the camera, you must turn on autofocus and refocus.

Exposure; expose

At this point, the exposure time should have been determined, and the camera should focus on the subject.

So, it's time to start exposure and start shooting!

Most cameras allow you to set the exposure time to 30 seconds. For exposures exceeding 30 seconds, please set the shutter speed to B-gate. Use the cable release or remote control to trigger the shutter button. The shutter will remain open until you press the release button again and use the stopwatch or the timer on your mobile phone to time the exposure time.

Light painting shooting skill

Here are some suggestions to get the most amazing results:

Draw from the side-don't just stand behind the camera, let the light pass through the image. Drawing a plane from the side will bring out the texture.

Use many different angles-for example, when painting the floor, keep the light beam low and translate the light along the floor. This can prevent the ground from appearing flat and show all the details of the surface. In addition, by adding light from multiple angles, the final image will have an interesting three-dimensional effect.

Don't stand between the camera and the light source-if you do, it will appear as a silhouette ghost in the final photo!

Wear dark, non-reflective clothes and keep shooting!

Don't shoot light at the camera, or bright spots will appear in the image.

Please use a flashlight with a red filter when checking the camera adjustment. A red light will prevent you from destroying your night vision.

Different surfaces react differently to light-wooden surfaces may need more light than bright surfaces such as metal or glass, because rough surfaces absorb more light than smooth surfaces.

Keep the light moving-move the beam slowly to increase the light and paddle faster in areas where less light is needed.

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The light painting skills shared above will help you start light painting photography. Photography should be innovative and not afraid to try new things.