Light Painting

[israelv]

A newbie question here. How do you avoid being seen in a light painting shot?

[nickbedford]

Wear a black ninja suit, of course!

[Vernian]

Light painting is done by using a long exposure in a dark area, with a movable lightsource used as "paint". The long shutter speed means that anything moving at a reasonable speed gets "blurred" out of the picture. This happens because during the long exposure light slowly accumulates on the sensor building up the picture. If you stand infront of the background you block out light from the background and reflect some light from your body to the sensor. The longer the exposure, the stronger the background image becomes allowing your momentary image to become invisible. However if you stand still during a long exposure you will act like the background and show up (at least partially) The longer the exposure, the slower you can move and still not show up, but that is something you will have to experiment with.

Offcourse wearing dark rather than light coloured clothes does help too!

Interrestingly enough the same principle applies for photos taking in light areas if you use a strong nd filter so that you can get a long exposure. This is often used to take photos of architecture where people move through a lot - the final image shows only the static architecture and not the people moving through it.

Hope this helps

Here's one of my lighting painting dealies. Shorts and Tshirt,

[OsmosisStudios]

Honestly, just keep moving. Wearing dark colours can help, but if you move fast enough and your light source is bright enough, you wont have an issue.

[deadgirlreading]

Originally Posted by nickbedford

Wear a black ninja suit, of course!

Can the ninja suit double as padding in your camera bag when not in use?

[KiMoOoZ]

work in a dark room or turn the light off and wear dark cloth and make the expoure long enough !!!