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Whilst we were waiting for our star trails exposures to complete (see this post viewtopic.php?f=18&t=42512) we spent the time using our second camera bodies practising some light painting.

We setup with the city as our backdrop and used the grassed area in the foreground to provide an area to paint. It was a fun evening even though we didn't feel like we created anything particularly mind blowing. I'll save you from the many abysmal failures and just show you some of the samples which at least worked

In this first we have a couple different green and blue strands of EL wire creating the not very convincing whispy blueish fire at the bottom, some smaller domes on the left (created using a bicycle wheel with an axle the same length as the radius of the wheel with some battery powered fairy lights around the rim) and a larger dome on the right using a length of dowel with a gelled torch at the end and to finish a sparkler was added at the very end (nice touch Kath ). A 250 second exposure at f/20 gives us enough time to complete the painting.



In this second we're using an iPad app Kath discovered to paint letters into the scene (you (attempt to) move the iPad smoothly through the scene as it projects the sliver of text over time).



Lastly an orb of light created by spinning some gelled battery powered fairy lights at the end of a length of wire in a circle whilst slowly rotating around a central point on the ground.

Love love love The first is the most striking to me - the repitition of the colours of the city in the light painting just sings, and the glow from the lights used also gives a little detail to the surrounding ground around the area being painted which 'grounds' it more than the last one - the last is almost as though the blue sphere has been added 'later' as the area surrounding it is so dark .... hope this makes sense (it does in my head  LOL)

Looks like you had fun...that iPad app looks good!

I like the idea of the first one combined with the light trails.

blacknstormy wrote:Love love love The first is the most striking to me - the repitition of the colours of the city in the light painting just sings, and the glow from the lights used also gives a little detail to the surrounding ground around the area being painted which 'grounds' it more than the last one - the last is almost as though the blue sphere has been added 'later' as the area surrounding it is so dark .... hope this makes sense (it does in my head)

Thanks and yes I do understand - the orb does glow a little on the ground directly below it (actually it lights up a small white marking spot on the ground which I spun over )

aim54x wrote:Looks like you had fun...that iPad app looks good!

Yes - but very tricky to use - we had many many bad takes to get this one half decent one

Murray Foote wrote:I like the idea of the first one combined with the light trails.

Man - hard core - probably possible though - could be a little busy asking for attention everywhere but I'm game - we'd have to do the light painting images either at the start during or just after twilight before starting the star trails or at the end after the star trails and blend later

Remorhaz wrote:

Murray Foote wrote:I like the idea of the first one combined with the light trails.

Man - hard core - probably possible though - could be a little busy asking for attention everywhere but I'm game - we'd have to do the light painting images either at the start during or just after twilight before starting the star trails or at the end after the star trails and blend later

No, I meant just blend the two images in Photostrop. Shouldn't be too hard at all.

Murray Foote wrote:No, I meant just blend the two images in Photostrop. Shouldn't be too hard at all.

Ahh - the images were taken from different positions using different focal lengths (and cameras). I understand I could technically make something believable up but that may be cheating