My kids are really digging night photography, so I thought I would start a thread about it.

Here are few things to check out:

www.dadlabs.com/Gear-Daddy/night-photography-with-kids.html

Nik also led us to

www.flickr.com/groups/lightjunkies/
GREAT "light tool" ideas here and amazing photos - borderline obsessive smilies/grin.gif

filthwizardry.blogspot.com/2010/01/ballo...rch-lightsabres.html
added fun of "balloon lightsabres"

And then there is this. Tron lovers take note.
Lights on a turntable.

vimeo.com/14980662

Dig that video! Thanks!

Post up some of your photos Daddy Troy! You too community members!
Here's a few from when I first experimented with this idea... These came out pretty good, but this was out of many many many tries...

Aw, ain't she sweet...

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Don't let the fairy wings fool ya... this chick is frkn dangerous!

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My friend Jeff has a dark personality...

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Hey, just saw this on www.DudeCraft.com... taking it a lil' bit cross the geek line...

www.dudecraft.com/2010/09/ipad-light-painting.html

Nik,

Your pix are awesome. Any advice on how you got them to look so good?

Troy

Try try try again... We took probably 30 or 40 and those are the best ones.

These were done with a small key chain led light with a push button which made it easy to 'draw' with and turn on and off. We had a street light maybe 70-80 feet behind the cam so the longer exposures lit up the foreground quite well. Depending on what you're going for (just light or a combo of subject and light) darker is generally better.

The leds are bright, so you have to move quickly or the image will be "blown out."

Maximum exposure length was 15 seconds (the longest my P&S cam will do without a firmware hack).

Just experiment with your cam settings, and how long it takes to draw something. I'll dig out some more photos later this week.


Come on... somebody else post up some light pics!

As promised, here are some more... with some very basic descriptions on how we did them...

We experimented last Halloween with a black sheet, using it to cover various parts, and choreographing the movements (since we only had 15 second exposures to work with).

In this one, you can sort of see the blanket on the ground(draped over my upper half). It was tucked in my pants. We lit my body on the ground for a few seconds, turned off the light, then I jumped up and let the sheet "black out" my legs, then lit my "floating" torso for a few seconds.

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Same concept, with sheet over the body, then it and his head hidden behind the tree.

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Draped over his body for the head exposure, turn around, pull sheet over his head for the backwards body exposure. This took a couple of tries to get his head lined up.

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This was done using a power drill and a small stick. Walked backwards away from the camera from cam right, then walked directly towards the lens.

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"EL Light Wire" is probably my favorite light painting tool. Just shaking it around gives an etherial flame look...

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Light wire in front of a StarWars poster.
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I'm yet to construct a good "orb tool" to get nice clean orbs like in the Light Junkies Flickr pool. But I will. (Some day there will be a light orb pic on the PlayDeck.) ;)

So there ya go. EXPERIMENT! It's quite addicting. Time can easily get away from you because you don't realize how long each attempt takes to set up and shoot/reshoot. Plus the laughin' and such with your friends as you brainstorm and laugh at the failures.

Nik

We are going camping this weekend with a bunch of kids, and we are going to give all of this a try. The drill image made my day!

Light painting and long exposures are rad. Here's a couple I did last year during my 1 a day/365 project. click for bigger.

Spinning fire on the beach

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My hometown

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Doug,

How did you do the spitting fire. It looks like there is a person in the middle of it.

Yeah, that's me! it's a 29:46 minute exposure.
what you do is get some steel wool and a wire coat hanger. make a handle out one end of the hanger and wrap one end around the wool. make sure its secure so the wool doesn't fly off.
If you're going to try this, wear a hoodie, make sure no one is around and there's nothing close that can ignite. sparks will be flying off in every direction.
So you take that and light it (you can do this with either a 9 volt battery or lighter) then as its burning, using the handle on the hanger, spin it.

"maker sure there is nothing flammable" -- like your hoodie? Do you wet it or do the sparks fly off due to centrifugal effects?

Its a really great picture btw.

"maker sure there is nothing flammable" -- like your hoodie? Do you wet it or do the sparks fly off due to centrifugal effects?

Its a really great picture btw.

Here is a great tutorial on 'fire pics' on flickr

www.flickr.com/groups/lightjunkies/discuss/72157624586667280/

And don't be disappointed when you spin it... in 'real time' it doesn't look nearly that dramatic (from the videos I've seen)... but the result is amazing as Doug has shown.

No, it won't look that way in real time (shutter was open for a half hour there, and I lined it up with some star trails) but it's a lot of fun to play around with.