Drawing with light is extremely really, really fun.
In order to get these types of shots, here is a generic combination of camera settings that you can use as a rule of thumb:
Put your camera on a tripod and use Manual Mode and manual focus, lower the ISO number as low as it can go. Have your aperture at F8 and your shutter speed at 5 seconds. If you want to make the photo brighter, change the aperture to a smaller number (like F3.5). Adjust your shutter speed as necessary. Most DSLR cameras have a maximum of 30 seconds as the shutter speed.
There are many different light toys that create different effects. Things that have been used before include sparklers, glow sticks, flashlights, maglights, fire/torches, RGB strips, Christmas lights, illuminated cell phones, iPods, laser pens, and of course, any kind of LED.
Let us get into some examples:
Scribble with a laser pen. In this example the laser pen was stroked up and down the models face. The model was very still. Be careful not to get the laser in your eye!
1 sec. / f 3.5 / ISO 200
These are city lights from a far away distance.
Move your camera up and down (or from left to right) while moving your focus ring at the same time. The camera records the light turning from sharp points into big blurry bokeh blotches.
sec. / f 6.3 / ISO 200 / 55mm
These lights are little LED Finger Flashlights that wrap around your fingers. I had red, blue, green, and white strapped around my fingers and waved around my hands while running around my kitchen frantically. My body remained invisible because it was not illuminated and was in constant motion. I just randomly drew lines, but you can draw faces or shapes like hearts, or words. Get creative! This was a 30 second exposure.
This is just a standard long exposure of a firework sparkler in motion.
Keep in mind that if you use a flash, the person holding the sparkler will show up in the photograph. Regular sparks from fires can also make amazing shots, especially if you go in and out of focus during the exposure. Make sure that the background is dark.
7 sec. / f22 / ISO 200.
Sure, you can use sparklers by themselves in empty dark space, but you can also trace objects with sparklers. Cars, bicycles, and sometimes even human beings make great subjects.
7 minutes long, ISO 100, F18
You can also use flashlights to give the scene an illustrious look.
Simply turn on your flashlight and start “spraying” light onto the scene to illuminate it in the dark. Remember, the entire purpose is not to just light up your subject with a stationary light, but to have a long exposure for say, 6 seconds, and move the light all around the environment to get that magical effect. If you have an extremely powerful flashlight, it is very well possible to illuminate entire landscapes in the dark as well!
If you have a tripod on you, and you’re in an amusement park or some kind, long exposures of rides look very good when taken in long exposure mode.
Ferris wheels are a classic example. For a light painter, going to an amusement park at night is like a kid going to a candy store
You can also create long exposure silhouettes.
Put your camera on a tripod.
Make sure your subject is standing still.
Make sure there is no light shining on them from the front.
Take your exposure, and then start light painting light from behind them. 5-30 seconds is good.
This particular image was made using a battery operated fiber optic light. It constantly changes colors to create a unique effect.
This was a long exposure of Christmas tree lights on a Christmas tree. It was a one second exposure. In order to get really smooth, straight lines, get your lens in focus then turn autofocus off so your camera won’t get stuck trying to focus. Then take ~1 second (or shorter) exposure and jerk your hand in a really fast motion, you should get a result just like this
Long exposures of traffic lights have always been the classic example of long exposures.
You must have a good tripod though.
30 sec / f18 / 50mm/ ISO 100
These lights are the little LED Finger Flashlights that wrap around your fingers. My body remained invisible because it was not illuminated and was in constant motion. Remember that you can draw faces or shapes like hearts or words. Get creative! These images are 30 second exposures.
These are called physiograms. Simply tie a string to the end of the Maglight, attach the other end of the string to the ceiling. About 2-4 feet is good. Maglights are pretty much MADE for physiograms (or any kind of light painting) because they are lightweight, and the cap can be taken off to enable a ‘candle mode’, making it the perfect light toy. Once your Maglight is dangling from the ceiling, put your camera on the floor right underneath the Maglight (on manual focus) turn the room lights off and the Maglight on, give the Maglight a little push, then take your 30 second exposure (or however long you want it. 15-30 seconds is what I use.)
Again, LEDs are just great. You can trace objects with them, just like you can with sparklers! (Although, of course, use sparklers outside!)
I was using my green LED Finger Flashlight again on this one.
You can also make flash stencils! Just put cardboard in front of your flash with a design cut out in it, and you’re ready to go.
Another cool thing to do with flashes is to take a 30 second exposure in the darkness and fire the flash multiple times on your subject in different areas in the frame.
And last but not least: Capturing lightning. This was a 7 minute exposure with the camera on a tripod. This is great because you can capture multiple strikes of lightning in one frame. However, because super long exposures introduce noise on the camera's sensor, you can help eliminate that by just taking a bunch of 30 second exposures one after the other, and then overlapping the frames in Photoshop by using the Lighten, Screen, or Linear Doge (Add) blending modes.
The example above was photographed by Brent Pearson. Pretty extraordinary stuff. You'll notice that the light on the foreground is very diffused (soft) and natural looking.
Normal flashlights such as Maglights do work, but the light might be a little bit weak or uneven. If you are annoyed with the 'un-even-ness' of the light, try putting some sort of diffusion material over the front unit of your flashlight.
Perhaps one of the best options, however, is to get one of the LED Lenser flashlights. Although I haven’t tried them myself, the beam of light appears to be much more brighter and smooth compared to Maglight torches.
Even though this photo sort of looks like it was taken during the day, it wasn't... But that doesn't mean you can't actually do long exposures during the day. Let’s talk about that in the next section!
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