Hello everyone, this is my first time starting a topic, ooh exciting! Well I am new to this (almost 2 months in) and am very much a novice with a camera but have been trying to learn and haven't done a single shot on the automatic setting since the start of my project.
Something I'm fascinated by though are light trails so I'd like to see yours and perhaps hear about how you set them up. I've seen a few pictures of light trails and lots of people always ask about the set up for them so I thought it would be nice to have a centralised place with some info for people wanting to give it a go.
I tried one yesterday that I'm not overly thrilled with as you can't see the detail of the flower but I'm definitley going to keep trying with them.
Also given that I've asked for explanations of how you shot yours I should probably tell you how I did mine.
I did it in a dark room and set the camera on manual. I did a five second exposure although perhaps some of my 8 second exposure shots were better. I set the aperture to f2 to let in the maximum amount of light and I used a mini maglite to trace shapes around my subject. That's it. Fairly simple set up but the results can be quite striking. I might have another play tonight.
@hasselhotch Great shot David, worth a follow for sure. I haven't attempted a manual light trail as yet, it's on the to-do list along with water crowns.
For what it's worth however, could you not get a little more detail on the flower by 'light painting' it up a little bit, or you could take two exposures and combine them using layers in PS?
@sporter85 That's a good idea, but I'm not quite that advanced with PS :-s
It is the darkness of the flower that disappoints me the most with this shot as the lack of detail is a shame. Thanks for the tip.
@hasselhotch
1: try it in raw, you will be able to get much more detail later. And also, enhance the lighting.
2: Light trails are difficult. I tried so hard to do one like this ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/sashafujin/4042789657/), but never quite managed. I did not post here because i wasn't satisfied with my result.
I was interested to discover that my biggest challenge as I stood on a footbridge was that the infrastructure shook every time a large vehicle rumbled beneath it!
These are done with lens zoom or camera movement during the exposure rather than moving the light source. There's a link under the first photo to more of them on my FBook page.
@jeffzam When you look at your own pictures there is a bit of the page that says share and there is a code you can copy and paste. If you copy the paste to a dialogue box like this on a discussion then when you click post reply the picture will appear.
Well is my humble picture of trail lights. It is quite unoticebale but just the same "original" . The background lit fortifications is the Lazzareto, part of Manoel Islands' fortifications. The blue light in the foreground. Yes that is a trail of a yacht passing by. The exposure time was high enough to render this yacht "invisible"
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I did it in a dark room and set the camera on manual. I did a five second exposure although perhaps some of my 8 second exposure shots were better. I set the aperture to f2 to let in the maximum amount of light and I used a mini maglite to trace shapes around my subject. That's it. Fairly simple set up but the results can be quite striking. I might have another play tonight.
For what it's worth however, could you not get a little more detail on the flower by 'light painting' it up a little bit, or you could take two exposures and combine them using layers in PS?
It is the darkness of the flower that disappoints me the most with this shot as the lack of detail is a shame. Thanks for the tip.
I reckon standing off camera and shining a little diffused light on the flower heads should bring out the detail though
1: try it in raw, you will be able to get much more detail later. And also, enhance the lighting.
2: Light trails are difficult. I tried so hard to do one like this ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/sashafujin/4042789657/), but never quite managed. I did not post here because i wasn't satisfied with my result.
http://www.mintgadgets.com/sport-gadgets/cycling-gadgets/clip-on-bike-led-lights/
Mine are simple long exposures, both with a bit of selective colour added.
An orb at the cathedral:
A wheel thing:
Brisbane:
The best of the rest are on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bradsworld/sets/72157624660977350
f/5.6 8secs
This is a candle.....used about a 6 second exposure at F10 and just wiggled the camera around.
Train going by a restaurant/bar
Once again, using the maglite - 3 separate images layered together in Elements.
Star trails
Je compte bien prendre d'autres photos en Light painting parce que j'adore ces effets (j'ai pleins d'idées en tête !!)
See you ;)