Big thank-you to Klair for doing my 1st guest post here on andrewsphotoblog – check out her Flickr steam here

Beginners guide to light painting:

What you will need to start:

Camera – Ideally a SLR or a bridge camera where you have full manual control over all settings.

Shutter release – So you are able to begin the exposure without touching the camera reducing the risk of camera shake.

Tripod – From experience the sturdier the better!

Torch – An LED torch ideally as they are good and bright.

Planning – Planning is the key to any successful image, have an idea in you head or draw it out on paper before you begin as composition is generally the hardest part of light painting to get right. One of the best locations for a beginner to start from is at the beach as you are able to draw marker points in the sand.

Framing your shot - Working out what areas will be in frame can be tricky the best way to find this out is to ask a friend to walk in front of your camera with a torch and draw points in the sand when they are leaving the frame, so you know when you are painting when you will no longer be visible to the camera.

Setting up your camera - Set your camera to bulb mode (should be marked as B on your functions dial) this will allow you to expose for longer than the std 30 seconds in manual mode as longer exposures are more often needed when you are light painting. ISO should be set at about 200 I would not go much higher than 400 as you increase the amount of noise in the image and the likely hood that you will appear as a shadow in the final image. Your aperture should be set at around f7.1 – f8 so you have a reasonable depth of field in your shot. There are two ways to set up the focusing for your shot if you are going to be painting over 10 feet away from the camera then set your lens to manual focus at infinity. If less that 10 feet away from the camera then as a friend to hold a torch at the mid point of your planned painting, focus automatically then once you have a fixed focus point switch your lens to manual focus.

(this is just a guide adjust setting as to suite the location or ambient light conditions you are shooting in)

Hints & Tips

1. I always wear a black hoodie and black jeans so not to show up on the final image.
2. Shoes or boots with a good grip so you are less likely to fall when running about like a loon!
3. Always go out with at least one other person for your own security and they will also come in handy when setting up for a shot.
4. Use features around you as reference points (or if making stick people use yourself!)
5. Always use your first shot as a test shot for exposure and composition.
6. Collect quality street wrappers to use as gels on your torch!
7. ALWAYS carry spare batteries.
8. If stars or the moon are visible in the shot be aware that after about 20 seconds you will start to get trails.

Heres a quick behind the scenes setup diagram for Dan’s portrait against Barrow Town Hall, hope its of help to any fellow photographers, note I’m using two flash heads as key light – both in same position, this is so I can use them at 1/8 power and hence have quick recycle times ( I shoot pretty quick !!), same shot could be done with one light in this position at 1/4 power, camera settings are for ambient exposure on the building.

Awesome video showing drop and collision in high speed video – very interesting to see on video

As we have learnt we can use the aperture and the shutter to control the amount of light reaching the sensor – each has a profound effect upon the final image – we must now look at how we combine these two elements to balance the exposure within the image.

Rather than write a long excercise on this blog I’ve decided to point you in the direction of a very nice simulator online, not only does this show how aperture and shutter vary the exposure upon the image – but it also introduces a few other variables that I may look at in future blogs (iso, lenses, etc) and does so in a very graphical interactive way – so follow the link and have a play !

http://camerasim.com/camera-simulator.html

Just a quick post for the few people that have requested a bit of information on the trigger that I use for the Strawberry & Cream pellet shot.

My current setup is based (loosly) on the circuit diagram and component list created by HiViz – so rather than me redesigning the wheel I’ve just provided a link to their site and schematic – take a look around the site as there is lots of very usefull information and kits available from them.

Schematic - http://www.hiviz.com/kits/instructions/documents/mte_schematics.pdf

Web Site – http://www.hiviz.com/kits/kits.htm

To go along with the lecture I’m doing tonight – a couple of web sites with examples of my 360 stuff (experimental) and some very usefull information from another photographer:

http://www.andrew-rose.co.uk/commercial/Pages/360vr.html

http://www.rosaurophotography.com/html/technical.html

Behind the scenes pic of the setup from the last strawberry and cream shot – must try and contain the mess more next time I do this (bits of strawberry found next morning around 10 ft away on Kitchen Ceiling —- ooops)

With the recent spell of very sunny weather we’ve been having I’ve tried my best to get out and about and do a few pics – now here’s the catch – sunny weather – great for photography maybe – but great for fashion/portrait location work…………………..

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL POST

Following on from Part 4 lets take a quick look at the other end of the shutter speed selections – here we are going to use fast shutter speeds (above 1/500th sec) to freeze action within the image – take a look at the two images below :

Within both of these images you can see how movement has been frozen – by using a fast shutter speed to stop any action within the image.

In the next part of this series I’ll combine the first 5 lessons and look at how we use the shutter and aperture in combination with each other to expose our image and how we can use different combination for different effects.

Moving away from apertures and now looking at the other variable that makes up exposure – the shutter speed.

Combining the correct aperture and shutter combination allows the correct amount of light to reach the camera sensor and create the image, as we have already seen adjusting the size of the aperture (lens opening) creates different amounts of depth of field within the image – however to correct for adjusting the aperture we must either increase or decrease the amount of time the sensor receives the light (otherwise the image will be either too light or too dark)

To do this we must adjust the shutter speed. In this first look at shutter speeds we will look at using slow shutter speeds to create effects within the image – I am going to look at two examples where slow speeds were used to allow movement to be recorded in the image.

NOTE that because I am using a slow shutter speed in both these images the camera must be mounted upon a tripod.

The first image we will look at has a shutter speed of aproximately 1/4 sec and shows the movement of water through our image

The second image takes this use of shutter to the extreme and is for a value of 30 seconds, here you can see trails of car lights as they pass through the image during a night time exposure.

Pic I posted yesterday in Flickr (splash!) managed to get chosen for the days explore selection – so thought I’d post a pic below showing the setup for anyone interested

Yes …….. it really was that ‘Heath Robinson’ spoon held with clip on tape measure camera fired via IR trigger circuit (£18 from maplin) with a small straw for added control of the beam (not sure if it actually worked) SB800 on camera controlling a SB600 off camera in manual mode.

Following on from the last ’101′ post I made I recieved a couple of comments with regard to hyperfocal distance, so thought I’d finish off the section on apertures by discussing this subject

As I (hopefully) explained in the last post – using a small aperture will increase depth of field in the image on both sides of the point of focus – so if we focus at a point say 10 metres away then an area of (for example) 8 metres to 14 metres  might be in focus.

If we now look at a landscape photographer that focuses his camera at the horizon (infinity) then he is in fact not utilising the depth of field to it’s true potential as only half the depth of field (the area in front of the focus point) is being used (it’s impossible to include any area after infinity !)

So what’s the answer – well we must refocus our camera to a point that allows us to utilise the depth of field properly , so we refocus our lens to a point that is refered to as the hyperfocal length. This by definition is a point that allows the greatest amount of depth of field in the image and can either be calculate (using the charts linked to at the bottom of this post) or by using markers on some lenses. As an example if we are shooting at F16 we would look for an f16 marking on our camera and set the infinity mark upon the F16 mark, this would give the maximum available depth of field within the picture (if we have no markings upon the lens use the charts below) in the instance below from just under 3 metres to infinity (the area enclosed by the two F16 indicators)

http://www.dofmaster.com/files/charts/samplecharts.pdf

Following on from the last camera technique post (using wide apertures) looking at the use of small apertures (e.g f11 to f22) we can see from the image below (taken with a wide angle lens) that the use of small apertures, combined with wide angle lenses give an enormous amount of depth of field (depth of focus) within the image.

This however has the drawback of dictating (often) a longer exposure and hence often requires the use of a tripod and is less likely to freeze any action within the image.

It can also mean that a ‘messy’ background within an image may compete with the main subject for the viewers attention – just something to look out for.

Quick post on how to use a reversed lens to get some real close up images -

Firstly here is an image taken at the closest focus on my 105mm macro – this image is 1:1

Next we take a standard 50mm lens – hold it THE WRONG WAY AROUND (reversed) in from of our existing lens and hold the aperture open (using the lever on the rear of the lens and our finger !Top image  is taken with a full frame camera – 2nd with a crop frame (for comparison for users with crop frame cameras)

And finally a couple of images of the setup used !

Give it a go and have fun !!!!!