light painting... How?

dragondan84

dragondan84

Suspended / Banned
Messages
674
Name
danial
Edit My Images
Yes
hey guys, how do you go about light painting on car shoots? what techniques? torches? light boxes etc etc?
 
low light, camera on bulb, light source and paint. trial and error
 
I know this is my first post and it might not count for much but as Poah points out I find that using a low power torch really good - something like a 30 - 40 Lumen LED torch or Petzl headlight tends to get me the best results, depending upon the ambient light.

I've also got a 200 Lumen LED Lenser P7 torch and it seems so powerful that it's really easy to overexpose stuff with it, especially if you're leaving the shutter open for minutes at a time. I'm still a beginner though, so go easy on me. All i do, and I've no idea if this is right, is set an aperature of F5.6 or F8 and fire the camera in Bulb with a remote timer and then walk around trying to get balanced light across the car and background. I've not tried it with any modifiers or with modelling lamps on studio lights yet, but i reckon that might be easier.

LED Lenser P7 @ 2 minutes -

6199751238_a45d00af58_z.jpg


6199754628_9bd8ffc024_z.jpg


Petzl 30 lumen Headlight and 4 minutes -

6067149034_aeafa09d9e_z.jpg


6066604295_42dce9f09b_z.jpg
 
Last edited:
Sky in that Passat pic is awesome.

To the op: Short answer. If you're using a little light, use it as you would a flashgun. Light from specific points, washing your light over all the bits you want lit. Trial and error comes lets you establish the exposure level. For bigger lights, this is where you'll be able to take a few steps back, your lighting will appear smoother and by walking around the car you'll create lines of highlights.

Long answer: car lightpainting tips on my blog, or click the pic below for my lightpainted cars set on flickr.

 
Hi Danial
Is this what you mean by light painting (light graffiti). For a car you need a bigger light thats all.

IMG_0034 by k4stn, on Flickr

IMG_0172 by k4stn, on Flickr
 
Sounds a silly question.. but with the torch, do you literally walk around the car, highlighting areas you wish to show?

With such long exposure times, how do you keep some darkness in the shot?
 
Also, does anyone know which light (s) i should use, and where I can cheaply buy them?

I have plenty of areas I can use in the liverpool area to good effect, but as a complete novice to this, I thought i best ask before trying it over the next few days!
 
Paul870 said:
Sounds a silly question.. but with the torch, do you literally walk around the car, highlighting areas you wish to show?

With such long exposure times, how do you keep some darkness in the shot?
Click to expand...

See my previous post :)

If you're using a torch I'd recommend treating it like you would speedlights: camera on tripod, light from several static positions, composite the best bits in PP. With a small light it's really tricky to get clean highlight lines so doing it this way avoids the potential for mess.

That also answers your question about managing exposure. In an area with streetlighting, you might find yourself shooting ten or fifteen 10-second exposures at f/8.

When it comes to the actual light, my eqpt is a closely guarded secret known only to myself, a few photographers, most of my customers and about 15,000 motorists who've driven past as I've been trying to complete various shoots :lol: In all seriousness, you can pull off some pretty neat looking shots with a £5 lantern - it's much more about technique than equipment.

But when you're working with a big, diffuse light source it makes it much easier to draw in highlights along the car's body by walking round the car whilst the camera runs.

This vid from a shoot I did a while back shows how the light and highlights fall into place separately as you move round the car.

[YOUTUBE]-BqEfv0qfkM[/YOUTUBE]
 
if you can set up a long thin source like a strip light they tend to work the best.
 
This is a better photo to show you how it's put together Danial. A touch with different coloured gels in front of the light is good for cars or a LED Keyring for walls.
All the parts used for this one was from an old computer.

IMG_0001 by k4stn, on Flickr
 
Sorry Andrew but and I quote "hey guys, how do you go about light painting on car shoots? what techniques? torches? light boxes etc etc?. " NOT "subject lighting techniques"
 
I do apologise to you Andrew if my last post was a bit over the top.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top