Light Painting Technique

(Vidhana Soudha. Mi A3)

This post is more of a guide type of post. So, I'll try not to make it boring.

I'm going to talk about a mode called Light Painting, which you might or might not have heard of, but you would have come across the pictures at least once. I'm doing this post because some people told me that it's not possible to take pictures like that after I posted a couple of these on Instagram. It's totally possible, and anyone can do it. It's simple by the core. The name says it all. You paint with the lights. 

• So, how do you paint with light?

A: You keep the shutter open for a longer time.

• What's shutter, and how do you keep it open?

A: Shutter is the door to the image sensor where the image gets recorded. The sensor is our eye, and the shutter is the eyelid. The longer the shutter stays open the more light gets captured.

These are just basics, there is also aperture that needs to be taken into consideration.

• What is aperture, you ask?

A: It, too, decides how much light is captured. But the difference is that the aperture is always open and the amount of light doesn't depend on the amount of time it is kept open but by the size of the opening. It's like squinting your eyes vs keeping it wide open. The aperture also decides the depth of field (which is mostly irrelevant here).

You can learn more about shutter speed and aperture by simply googling it.

We would need a tripod or a stable base to keep the camera since the shutter is open for a long time, and any slight shake would result in a blurry picture.

First, let's see how to do it on mobile. And this is for android, I haven't used iOS, so I don't know.

I mainly use 2 apps. One is ProShot, another is this version of Google Camera Mod.

Note that Google Camera Mod may not work on all devices.

Adjust the tripod and place the camera/mobile. It's better if the picture covers as much width as possible. Just focusing on the lights isn't gonna make it a good picture. Either a good background or foreground is necessary.

In ProShot app:

Select the marked option.

An option like this appears. Here you select for how long it will take the pic. The process is different than in DSLR. Here, the app takes a series of pictures and stitches them together. You select the number of seconds you want here. And no, more is not equal to good. You gotta be careful and not make a mess out of it. I normally choose 4 secs or 10 secs.

Then again at home select the marked item.

Here choose the Manual option.

Here select the shutter speed to around 1/2 sec or 1 sec depending on the amount of light present at the scene. If it's a bit brighter, 1/2 or faster shutter than that, and if it's less then slower shutter. And click and wait. Don't touch the phone till the image is captured fully.

In Google Camera app: First, you have to enable the option by going to Settings>PX Mod Settings>Show Astro Buttons, then enable it there.

Then go to the home screen, select "Night Sight" mode.

And from there select the marked option, and click! And let the camera do its magic.

I prefer ProShot because the controls are in our hands. But nothing can beat the quality of Google Camera App. So, it really comes down to the circumstances.

Now in DSLR:

Adjust the settings. Shutter speed shall be somewhere between 8-10 seconds. But this could vary depending on your liking. And aperture should be somewhere around f/13. This is kinda trial and error. You see the first image and decide it. Or, if you put the camera on Shutter priority mode the aperture will be automatically decided by the camera.

Capture the image! And make sure to have self-timer enabled since even pressing the shutter key would shake the camera.

Captured in ProShot app. Couldn't have asked for a better background. The story behind this picture is that we got bored at 11 pm. So, we went out without any destination in mind. Then we simply rode here. But we didn't have a tripod that day. So, we kept the helmet on the bike and the phone inside that at first, but that didn't work out. Then we kept it on the ground and it turned out pretty alright.

Captured on Google Camera App from inside the plane. I held my phone against the window and this was the result. The wing is not blurry because it's all relative speed.

I hope you liked this guide. My intention was to show you that anyone can capture images like this, and the equipment rarely matters. When you see a painting, do you appreciate the painter or the brushes? The same goes here. Not that the equipment doesn't matter, but if you like it enough then you can do it without waiting to have the "right camera".

And if you aren't interested then fine. But please do share so that someone who is interested might learn something. Thank you and goodbye! Stay safe. Have an awesome weekend!