Light Painting Overview

light painting

Light painting is the process of painting with light in a dark environment. You may be familiar with these photos, in which luminous fantasy-like spheres float in a room or lettering and symbols appear on a photo as if by magic. These pictures are usually so-called Lightpainting.

While the camera is performing a long-term exposure, all light information is permanently transmitted to the image sensor. With static light sources such as lanterns, a long exposure at night therefore leads to a balanced bright image result. The lantern illuminates the surroundings and provides a bright illumination of the entire environment on the photo. The longer the photo is exposed, the brighter it becomes.

If the light sources are now moved during a long exposure, they draw a light track on the later photo. By the movement of the light source, new image information about the position of the light source is continuously transmitted to the sensor, which records this shift and displays it as a tracer at the end.

Once this principle has been understood, it is a lot of fun to let this effect of the light traces flow into the picture design.

Basically the light painting is a completely regular long-time exposure. While in a normal long-time exposure, for example, passing cars provide for red light traces on the finished exposed photo, in the light painting you create your own light traces. As you move your light source like a brush in the image section and thus create or quasi paint a trace of light, you speak of light painting.

Important Basic Settings

Aperture

The optimal aperture is about:

f8 – f11

I’m convinced that simply try it out.

ISO

The ISO value describes the light sensitivity of the image sensor. Best is a value of :

ISO 100

Due to the dark environment and the comparatively long exposure time when photographing light painting, is a low ISO value absolutely necessary. This reduces the later noise on the image, but also increases the exposure time. Another advantage is that the dynamic range of your camera increases as the ISO value decreases.

Shutter Speed

The shutter speed describes the time that the light reaches the sensor to expose it. To have enough time for light painting, the shutter speed should be at least 30 seconds. For longer exposure times, it is necessary to switch to bulb mode for most cameras. This mode is intended for longer exposure times and exposes the sensor as long as the shutter release button is pressed. With the help of a remote shutter trigger, you can start the exposure and lock the shutter release. When you are finished with your Lightpainting, you release the lock of the shutter release and end your exposure.

Further Adjustments

I shoot light paintings generally in manual mode because here, all degrees of freedom are given to you. So you can influence all variables according to your wishes and correct them quickly.

I take the pictures in RAW format to get the best picture quality and to be able to adjust my white balance in post-processing.

A particular difficulty at night is focusing. Especially in almost total darkness, it’s impossible to find the right focus point, so it’s essential to set the focus manually.

Due to the long-term exposure, it is important to have a stable stand, because even minimal wobbles can influence the end result to a maximum. Therefore a safe and stable tripod is not to be renounced. Moreover, the camera does not know that it is firmly fixed, and the image stabilization could still try to compensate for something that does not exist. Therefore the image stabilization should also be switched off.

After all, settings have been made, it is not easy to give tips on image composition, because everyone has their own ideas about what should be in the image. In general, I would say: Less is more. Try to only include elements in the picture that should be part of it and perhaps have a relationship with your central motif.

Design Samples

Skills needed

Mastering the basic understanding of your own camera
To be able to operate your camera safely even in the dark
Manual focusing your camera
Be well rested & have fun by your photography

Planning 46%

Shooting Time 82%

Selection & Editing 38%

Publication & Recognition 26%

Tripod

Like night photography, lightpainting requires low light and long exposure times to photograph. For this reason, a tripod is indispensable. It’s even more important than photographing buildings at night. Because of the glowing effects, every wobbler will be visible on the photo immediately.

Since most of the suitable photo positions are in the open, there is no possibility to place the camera anywhere. For this reason, you should use a stable tripod to avoid camera shake. A tripod is therefore a must for light painting in any case!

Remote Trigger

When you take pictures from a tripod, you do it, so the picture doesn’t jitter. However, the moment you press the shutter button on the camera, you may be shaking the image.

To avoid this error, I use a remote shutter release. To my knowledge, there are wireless, infrared, and cable remote triggers on the market. All three fulfill this function.

Batteries & Storage

Long-time exposures consume a lot of battery power because the mirror has to be kept permanently up, for example with SLR cameras. So you should not only have the battery fully charged but also a spare battery with you. Batteries have lower performance at low temperatures, which you should keep in mind.

You should have your memory cards properly formatted and choose the right size for your purpose.

Flashlight & Gloves

As you almost always move in the dark during light painting, you need to be familiar with the functions and settings of your camera. It’s also very helpful to carry a flashlight.

Especially in the later seasons, it gets faster colder in the evenings and at night, so think of gloves. The best thing to do is to try out whether you can still operate your camera well with them.

Lightpainting

painting with light