What are the techniques of light painting photography?

What are the techniques of light painting photography?

Light painting, the official saying is to use the camera's long exposure mode to shoot the moving track of the light source, which can give full play to creativity and draw any image with light in three-dimensional space. The following is information about my light painting photography skills for your reference!

Light painting photography skill one

Hint 1: Use door B skillfully.

When taking light painting, you need to adjust the camera shooting mode to "B-door" mode. During the day, you may never use the B-door mode, because at night, the B-door comes into play, which allows the shutter to open indefinitely. Note: this does not refer to those low-end cameras, but to more professional machines, preferably with battery handles, so that you can take light pictures for a long time at night.

Tip 2: Avoid light pollution.

Those areas with less light pollution can provide the best shooting background for creating light effects. The longer the shutter is open, the more flexible and creative you will be. If the shooting background is dark, you need high-intensity lighting equipment. By standing outside the lens and moving the lighting equipment slowly and steadily, you can illuminate those dark but interesting places.

Secret 3: Clear and bright.

Think of the camera sensor as a piece of wood and your flashlight as red-hot metal. You just want to bake wood with red-hot metal. The smoother you move, the brighter the light. If you leave the lens in the flashlight for too long, you will "burn" the image like that piece of red-hot metal, and you will get an unwanted strong reflection. If you need to stop, turn off the flashlight. When you are ready to add new elements to the image, turn your flashlight back and start moving quickly. And when you shoot with door B, all these can be shot at once.

Tip 4: Move smoothly.

After selecting B-door mode, you may keep the shutter open for more than 30 seconds, so your camera needs to be as smooth as a stone. In order to achieve this, you need a sturdy tripod, and each bracket can be adjusted independently, which allows you to avoid some obstacles when shooting outdoors. If you need to build a tripod in a soft place, such as sand or mud, you can put a cushion at the bottom of the tripod to disperse its pressure.

The existence of cable release is very necessary. It can help you open and keep the shutter open, so that you have time to continue shooting works about light art ... If you have friends around you, they can help you with the pay-off. Of course, you can also turn on the cable release and the camera timing function at the same time, and it is best to set the time to 10 second. This setting will give you enough time to set the frame and take a deep breath before you start creating.

Tip 5: Plan ahead.

Once you understand the basic elements of light art, you will understand that the camera battery is likely to die in the middle of the night. So, if you plan to spend a night shooting in the suburbs or city streets, please make sure that every battery you use is fully charged. Get everything ready before you leave. After all, it is better to feel smooth at home than to grope in the dark.

Light painting photography skills II

A. draw the background class:

An assistant who draws a background needs certain motor cells. For example, sometimes he can write backwards when he wants to write, move at a constant speed when he draws a trajectory, and walk fast enough when he wants to run. Generally speaking, the assistant who paints the background should be familiar with the operation of various light sources, and wear black clothes to help the protagonist and photographer describe various trajectories. It should be emphasized that black clothes will affect the neatness of the overall picture, and it is generally recommended that long sleeves are better than short sleeves. If you don't wear black clothes, you will inevitably go to hell when shooting. Remember this.

In addition, the assistant who draws the background can write backwards. Generally, we write from left to right, but in light painting, the direction of words is reversed 180 degrees. If you can't write backwards skillfully, you will also encounter some troubles.

B. Model

As the name implies, our model here is the main body of characters in light painting works. The model of light painting doesn't need to find handsome guys and beautiful women as usual, but there is one key point, people must be stable enough. This stability means that in the whole process of light painting, people can keep a fixed posture and let the person in charge of painting the background complete the overall creation.

Unlike assistants who draw backgrounds, assistants who model are required to wear light clothes. Generally speaking, white, yellow and orange are better, and red and green are acceptable.

C. Equipment and light source preparation

There is a lot of knowledge about light sources and equipment, which will be introduced in detail in the next chapter. This is mainly the auxiliary part. Because there are many things to deal with at the scene, it is also a good thing to have an assistant to help match the colored lights needed for each creation and install the corresponding facilities. If possible, you can arrange a good friend to be responsible for making equipment and light sources, especially women. Sometimes, if a large number of light sources are used, for example, many people need to cooperate in painting, some suitable containers can be used to store the light sources. The author thinks that the indicator lamp used in this kind of concert is very cost-effective, a few cents each, with various colors, and it lasts for several hours, which is more practical.

The third skill of light painting photography: frequency flash source and moving light source

Next, we will focus on one of the advanced practical skills, that is, frequency flash source. Let's take a look at the following illustration first.

As you can see, the light in the picture is segmented and separated, and it is still very regular. The reason is that when we took this photo, we used an automatic frequency flash source, and the effect of the above picture was achieved by automatically controlling on and off. In addition to this intermittent effect, we can also use stroboscopic to make this special effect similar to flowers and plants.

As a strobe light source, we can choose to use some high-performance LED flashlights instead. Generally, models using lithium batteries support strobe mode. Or friends with conditions, you can also use high-end flash to turn on strobe mode. In addition to stroboscopic, it is also a good method to put the light source at one end of the rope and then rotate it, which can draw beautiful circular ribbons. The light sources are not necessarily single, but may be mixed. Here is an example for your reference.

The fourth skill of light painting photography: strip light source and liquid refraction

Another important point of light painting photography is the flexible use of strip light sources, which can be some luminous sticks or some self-made reflective strips. This material is very easy to find. You can buy some LED flash sticks for festivals online. However, when buying, we should pay attention to the fact that considering the brightness, the light-emitting rods we buy must be LED-emitting, and we can't buy disposable chemical light-emitting rods, which can't meet the requirements of light painting and shooting, and are not environmentally friendly. After using the rod light source, many effects that point light source can't achieve can be photographed. The following samples can be used for reference.

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