“Painting with Light”
Design

“Painting with Light”

By November 23, 2018 No Comments
Starry night-time skies make for impressive pictures but to kick them up a notch, try painting with light.
1

Put your camera on a tripod. You’ll want a wide-angle lens, somewhere between 14mm and 35mm equivalent on a 35mm full frame.
2

Set the camera to “B” (bulb) or Manual so that when you press the shutter the lens stays open.
3

Select an ISO of 3200 and an aperture slightly above wide open. For example, if it’s a f3.5 lens, select f4.0. Generally lenses are a wee bit sharper when not wide open.
4

Use a shutter release or the self-timer to trigger the camera. That will ensure you eliminate camera shake from your finger.
5

Try a few shots. I’d recommend the first one at 20 seconds. Beyond 30 seconds, the stars actually move enough in that time to look a tiny bit stretched.
6

You’ll want to experiment with exposure here. Maybe you have a high-end camera and push the ISO to 6400 or higher without introducing grain. Perhaps you’ve got a fast lens and can shoot at f2.0 for 10 seconds. A few quick shots will give you an idea of what to adjust.
7

Once you have the general exposure, take your small LED flashlight out and selectively paint part of the scene. It’s more refined than using a flash. For the boat shot, the sky was 30 seconds exposure and painting with the flashlight was 8 secs.

“Sparklers”

Sparklers

In this example, the intent is to get a rich deep blue sky and capture the drawings or designs people make when given a sparkler on a nice evening. Note the difference in exposure. ISO 100 and 9 secs. ISO 100 and f11 would have allowed an extra 3 or 4 seconds of “drawing” … so make sure you experiment.

Canon 5D Mark 2  |  ISO 100  |  7 mm lens  |  f10  |  9 second exposure

Doug McLellan is a cinematographer at LTR Corp. He lives in the 1000 Islands where his Instagram handle is RiverRatDoug.

Doug McLellan

Doug McLellan

Doug is a writer, director and cinematographer. A visual thinker who has travelled the world, he likes seeing the big picture while sharing the important details.