#56 1st Try (Ever) Light Painting (Need Help!)

slpollett

I've never ever done any panning or light painting. I thought it sounded like fun, so I decided to try painting first. Well, I guess I can say that my first attempt at light painting produced some pretty dismal results. :cry I had a couple of different ideas that I tried but none of them turned out quite the way I expected.

I purchased some light sticks and gave them to my daughter and her friend. I had them doing all sorts of things with those sticks--they outlined each other's body, they drew pictures in the air, they twirled them, they wrote words, they just danced with them...you get the idea. I also had a small blue penlight that they also used.

My biggest disappointment is not so much the compositions (that weren't that great but I wasn't expecting much on the first try), but rather that the colors from the lightsticks didn't show up well in the final product. I used a 5-second shutter. I figured that would be enough. Is that too much, too little?? The light sticks were red, pink, and orange. In the camera, the colors looked 'dull' but they did show up pretty well. We could at least see what the patterns were. When I moved the images off the camera to the computer, almost none of these colors showed up at all. :scratch:scratch:scratch In almost all of the images on the computer, the only thing that showed up was the blue penlight. Could anyone or would anyone mind telling me what I did wrong?

Here's the best of the bunch (again, none of these are entry-worthy--I was just trying to figure out how to do this).

1.This one I did some editing to bump up the red A LOT just to get it to show up.


2. This one is unedited except for cropping


3. This one is sooc


I can only hope that my daughter will feel like doing this for me again so I can keep trying.

Thanks, everyone.

Sherry

SeascapeS

Not bad! #3 is cute, but they are all good for your first attempt.

sherstone

As you can see the pen light which looks like it might be an LED because of the blue, is bright and shows color. I suspect the reason the light sticks do not show as much color is because they really are nowhere near as bright in comparison to your penlight. Glow sticks look quite bright in the dark to us, but to a camera sensor they really are not.

When I was experimenting with light sticks I needed to make sure my ISO was 1600 or greater to get sufficient brightness and even then it needed some help in editing. If you want to try using light sticks again, try setting your ISO as high as possible without noise looking horrible. Also try moving the light sticks much slower to see if that helps?

I am happy to see some great experimentation happening.

slpollett

Thanks Sandi & Sean. If my daughter cooperates with me, I'll try this again with higher ISO. I guess it would help if I found a brighter light source, too. Or maybe just go to plan b and try panning (which I've never done either) if I can find anything interesting to shoot.

Thanks again,
Sherry

davev

The 3D quality of the 1st shot is outstanding.
The blue just pops out of the shot.
I'm guessing you used a fairly large aperture with a thin DOF.
The blue is tack sharp while the red has a bit of blur that helps the 3D effect.

lkbart

davev wrote: »

The 3D quality of the 1st shot is outstanding.
The blue just pops out of the shot.
I'm guessing you used a fairly large aperture with a thin DOF.
The blue is tack sharp while the red has a bit of blur that helps the 3D effect.

silvereye

As far as what you did "Wrong" I dont think you did anything "Wrong" I might suggest if using Chem-lights use Chem-lights.. The intensity of the blue penlight may have caused the red chem-light to loose some intensity.

Great 1st attempt.. #1 is very cool but shoot it again, there is nothing but time

red_zone

I also like #1, word-shape association and all, although the others are pretty neat as well...

I really love the vibrancy of the blue pen light - I wonder if you can find a flashlight with a red cover or something with red LEDs to bump up the red light. I know for some reason a few of the cheap flashlights I've been given recently have red LEDs in them.