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Once it got dark we grabbed our lightpainting gear and other "accessories" (shovels anyone? ) from the cars for a little late night work in the dark forest.

Thankyou gents for another enjoyable evening out in the wilds.

Whilst we had all wandered around separately and thus presumably got different shots during sunset - for the lightpainting session due to the nature of most of what we were doing (lots of backlighting subjects with flash for instance) we needed to have all the cameras clustered together so we didn't get the light sources pointing directly in the frame of any of our cameras - the practical upshot of this will be that we'll all pretty much get the same or similar shots.

It was really, REALLY dark in the forest... and the spiders... I'm thinking those beasts were putting up webs between the trees to catch bats not insects (that should give you an idea how big those suckers were)... stumbling around in the dark walking into giant spider webs with monstrosities the size of your fist... Shudder!...

From a post processing point of view I didn't really do anything much to the night shots - they are very close to as shot with AutoWB; mostly just a touch of clarity, vibrance, shadow recovery and some sharpening, plus cloning out some small distracting lights in the distance

So onto my selection...

A little Green Dome action by Gerry with some tree lighting (high powered torch) from the side whilst controlling the spill



The Undertaker was predominantly lit with a number of pops (manual at 100%) of a gelled flash (SB-900) towards the camera from the other side of the subject at various angles to define them (flash zoomed out to wide) and then a couple pops down the tree lined tunnel with the flash zoomed to 200mm (at all times hiding the flash from the cameras)



The following utilised a similar technique with the addition of some lightpainting of the trees from the subjects position along with the use of some incredibly expensive light painting gear (a.k.a. some children's star wand toys )

Fireflies



Finally our last lightpainting image from the night (and my favourite) was lit in a similar way

Treasured

You guys have outdone yourselves. This set is amazing. I love the warm light in #2, #3 and #4.

nice Rodney, remind me next time (i'll explain later) to bring talcum powder

biggerry wrote:nice Rodney, remind me next time (i'll explain later) to bring talcum powder

I know what you are up to......good thinking

I love the last two, but feel the images would be stronger without the red and blue lights. The lightpainting, separate to these other lights, is brilliantly done.

aim54x wrote:

biggerry wrote:nice Rodney, remind me next time (i'll explain later) to bring talcum powder

I know what you are up to......good thinking

hehe, i have investigated the fog machine option and even with a cheap inverter and car battery the portability and endurance is unacceptable, however talc is cheap and whilst not as versatile it does provide a quick and dirty entry into the fog market

Remorhaz wrote:A little Green Dome action by Gerry with some tree lighting (high powered torch) from the side whilst controlling the spill

This concept needs some more refinement, but I reckon it certainly has merit, the overall scene is neat but the shitty dome ruins it completely in my opinion . However the ambient lighting with the torch is perfect.

aim54x wrote:

biggerry wrote:nice Rodney, remind me next time (i'll explain later) to bring talcum powder

I know what you are up to......good thinking

Blisters from the shovel work? Lol!

Fantastic work. Absolutely sensational!

aim54x wrote:You guys have outdone yourselves. This set is amazing. I love the warm light in #2, #3 and #4.

ATJ wrote:Fantastic work. Absolutely sensational!

Reschsmooth wrote:I love the last two, but feel the images would be stronger without the red and blue lights. The lightpainting, separate to these other lights, is brilliantly done.

Thanks fellas

biggerry wrote:This concept needs some more refinement, but I reckon it certainly has merit, the overall scene is neat but the shitty dome ruins it completely in my opinion. However the ambient lighting with the torch is perfect.

Thanks Gerry... perhaps strangely a number of others I showed some of these images to (non photogs) really liked the dome image (perhaps because it's so unusual). Personally I reckon it could have done with some of the other side of the dome painted in - and I now believe you were right in not painting a circle at the base of the dome . With the lighting I remember when I saw the shot on the back of the lcd I was concerned with that bright leafy branch on the far left (closest to my torch) and thinking I'd have to burn it down in post - but on the big screen I grew to like it - thoughts?

I'm actually quite keen to see what Suren does with these - he wanted to radically shift/change the colours (e.g. wrong coloured fireflies)

The Undertaker shot is a great concept. If only the clothing was more sinister to match the feel of everything else in the frame.

1 & 2 for me Rodney. As others have already said the clothing for the gravedigger needs some attention to suit the theme but technically a big thumbs up.

I prefer the first one of the set.