painting with light

I want to get some photos of the inside of caves using the painting with light technique that is often glibly mentioned . I can't find the original magazine that gave me the idea.

The one technique I have read that I can't afford is an array of flashes with people setting them off around the cave. Any suggestions for an alternative method? (The caves are not huge)

Dave

Is the cave normally dark?
If so then set a long exposure and rush around the cave with your flash (or a torch) and set it off where you want the "painting". You should wear dark clothing and no your way around fairly well so you don't fall over things in the dark. the camera shouldn't record you - just the light.

If you do a Google you will even find some videos to tell you how to do it.

pitch dark cave : open shutter, wave torch about for a while, close shutter.


Edit: damn, Gwyn beat me to it...

or any other light source... fireworks, glowsticks, lanterns... sparklers... etc etc...

In a suitably long exposure you have to stay still for a surprisingly long time to show up. I was messing around with a couple of friends last year (trying to make it look like one of them was being strangled by a ghostly figure) by the usual trick of a 30 second exposure and getting the "ghost" to stand in the frame for the right length of time then jump out. It took a couple of tries to make them show up at all!

multi exposures work for shots like that as well as some painting with light shots.... you can get less noise overall if you use multi exposures instead of long exposures...

Interesting - I did have something of a problem with noise but put it down to the shot being underexposed. I was using an M series lens and when stopped down to get the 30 second exposure the metering wasn't behaving (ok down to f11 or so but not at smaller apertures). Next time I'll insist they stay still for longer while I use digital preview to get it right!

Multiple flashes using B is one technique. The other is using an LED torch. Some of these are incredibly bright, but the light can be rather blue/green.

Bosanko's work is stunning. I'd also head for flashes used at 1/64 or so and long-ish exposures. Or HDR it.

Bret

Wowzers, those blue trees near the bottom are incredible!

Dave

I lit this by setting the camera on a tripod on a 30 second exposure (I didn't have a remote cable for B shots to hand) and discharging an old flash unit (by pressing the test button) two or three times. If I had had two flashes it would have been easier because I could have set them off in turn, getting round the recharge time!

I did a trial exposure without flash first until I was happy with the exposure of the sky and streetlights.




The camera settings are here: link (actually that's a slightly different shot but the settings are the same).

Wow what a response with some really useful ideas. I think that I am go to have to experiment at home first before I venture out to the caves.

Thanks for the really arty link Gareth - very inspirational.

Will, your very practical example has probably helped me most as I can see the camera data from the link. This also shows that you don't need complete darkness. Why did you use an old flash?

John, are you suggesting LED torches as they generally have a clearer light?

The light is more consistent, it's brighter and batteries last a long time before fading. I have a Lenser LED with one high powered LED and it's very useful for shots in the pitch black. It can also be useful to aid the camera in focusing in very dark places.

Because it was cheap! An expensive new one would have done the job just as well

You could buy several random old flashes on feebay for just a few quid ... this is one situation where you don't have to worry about voltage

LED torches are far more directional than conventional torches, so you can be far more specific on the areas you are highlighting.

They have a very high colour temperature (which has the side-effect of appearing brighter to the eye), so things will end up much bluer/colder than they would with an "old fashioned" torch. If you do want the warm tungsten look, you can get bargain-basement torches for 49p or something like that in Tesco etc...

Flossie
Professional Torch Fetishist.