Making an image with light

                                     Taken on the Nikon D5000

Painting with light is a very fun thing to experiment with. In order to do this task, you must have a DSLR camera. To get the greatest results, shut off all the lights in the room so it is completely dark. Next, grab a flash light or some sort of strong light source that is easy to move around. Once you have done both of these steps, turn your camera on and set it to a very, very slow shutter speed. When I paint with light I usually set my camera to about a 20-30 second exposure depending on what I want to achieve. When drawing something simple such as a shape, you can easily set your camera to a 5 second exposure. Once your exposure is selected, flash the light in front of the camera lens and start to draw.

In the picture above taken on a Nikon D5000, my settings were as followed:

S-13 seconds

A-F/22

ISO-600

I had my aperture set to a closed aperture so I could ensure a sharp end to end photograph. My ISO was set to 600 so I could let a bit more light in to make the picture stand out a bit more. Lastly, I set my shutter to a 13 second exposure so I could take my time drawing and to get the picture I had in mind.

It is very important that you keep in mind that since you are working with slow shutter speeds, you MUST put your camera on a tripod. If you do not use a tripod on these settings, your image will not turn out and rather look very blurry.