What Lights Do You Use for Light Paints?

For anyone doing light paints, what's your recommendation for simple yet colorful and dramatic light other than a household flashlight? I'm planning on doing some experimental portraits playing with the 2nd curtain flash.

I did this one with a led small flash light.
http://www.happyvalley​photography.com …98b/446948526_4​WmT4-M.jpg

Any LED's you can get your hands on are good. I have used a keyring LED light you know the ones that help you find your car key in the dark. I have used an LED Hat light that you clip onto the bill of your hat it had 5 LEDs in a line. I have also used wooden sticks that were on fire then blown out to use the red ember from the wood. Look here https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=878729 just 2 shots I did. The first is with the wood on fire and the second is the Hat LED.

The question is what kind of light painting are you planning on doing? Stuff like this can be done with any kind of flashlight, although it's good to have different sizes so you can get different spreads of light in differing areas. ....

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/tltichy/6350252​507/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/tltichy/6390506​813/

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Scatterbrained wrote:
=Scatterbrained;135443​43 ....

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/tltichy/6350252​507/
Light Painted Lenses by tltichy, on Flickr

Absolutely gorgeous shot

7D_Sniper wrote in post #13544375
Absolutely gorgeous shot

Thanks.

One thing I forgot to mention to the OP, if you haven't done this before (you didn't say) is that you will need to make a snoot for your light to prevent it from shining directly into the camera. My little LED flashlights have about 3" long homemade snoots on them so I can work within the image frame without the light itself showing up in the final image. If you are lightpainting a portrait background you should be able to move around at will with a snooted light so long as you don't aim it directly at the camera, this will give you much better light control vs trying to shine it across the scene from just outside of the frame. Of course if you knew that already then ignore me as I'm just being redundant.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I just assumed that by "light painting" using "2nd curtain flash" for portrait only meant one thing.

This morning I saw in a local newspaper some portraits of prep athletes posing with their gear with lights swirling all around them. I thought, oh cool, I want to do the same except portraits of musicians since I've never seen one like that for musicians. I did such light paints (just fooling around for the first time when we were bored):

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Same theories apply. Think about doing an environmental portrait....you may want to have dramatic lighting on certain elements while the remainder of the frame is black, you can achieve this with the same techniques taken to a larger scale. The principals are the same. I've done the whole "spin the light around and then hit it em with the flash" thing, I just thought you were looking for something more complex.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/tltichy/4768809​924/

Another thought for you (something I've been meaning to try) if you look at the first image you posted, you can see the light falloff where the angle of the flashlight moves away from the lens. Putting some sort of diffuser over the end of the flashlight may help to alleviate that, allowing you to get light no matter where the flashlight is facing. I havn't tried it yet, but it's on my to do list. That way the subject can spin and move the light up and down without losing the light in the camera. Or you could get a flashlight that allows you to work with the bare bulb exposed and unshrouded.

Yep, put some sort of color translucent cap on the end of the flashlight and you are good to go. You want a spot of light and less of a beam.

Scatterbrained wrote in post #13545189
Another thought for you (something I've been meaning to try) if you look at the first image you posted, you can see the light falloff where the angle of the flashlight moves away from the lens. Putting some sort of diffuser over the end of the flashlight may help to alleviate that, allowing you to get light no matter where the flashlight is facing. I havn't tried it yet, but it's on my to do list. That way the subject can spin and move the light up and down without losing the light in the camera. Or you could get a flashlight that allows you to work with the bare bulb exposed and unshrouded.

That's an idea worth trying. I'm waiting for my boys' school break for the holidays to do some of these fun stuff. If I get anything decent, I'll post the results here. Thanks for all your responses!

7D_Sniper wrote in post #13544269
Any LED's you can get your hands on are good. I have used a keyring LED light you know the ones that help you find your car key in the dark. I have used an LED Hat light that you clip onto the bill of your hat it had 5 LEDs in a line. I have also used wooden sticks that were on fire then blown out to use the red ember from the wood. Look here https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=878729 just 2 shots I did. The first is with the wood on fire and the second is the Hat LED.

keyring LED light is a good stuff, great!!!!!!!!! I have also one

Scatterbrained wrote in post #13545020
Same theories apply. Think about doing an environmental portrait....you may want to have dramatic lighting on certain elements while the remainder of the frame is black, you can achieve this with the same techniques taken to a larger scale. The principals are the same. I've done the whole "spin the light around and then hit it em with the flash" thing, I just thought you were looking for something more complex.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/tltichy/4768809​924/
IMG_4393 by tltichy, on Flickr
edit: go back to each different technique I talked about in my first post, it should be pretty easy to see how it can be done on a larger scale for a portrait. BTW, instead of using rear curtain sync, why not use bulb mode and pop the flash off manually when you're done with the light? This way you can actually put the light anywhere and not worry about using a special sync cord or higher end triggers.

So after reading this thread i'm kind of interested in trying something like this..let me know if I have this right! So you set yourself up on a tripod in bulb mode...open the shutter..maybe have someone else swirl around your subject with sparklers...then maybe hold your flash off camera (no triggers or anything required) to get a little shadow on them if you want it and when your subject is in the desired pose hit them with a pulse of light and as soon after close the shutter? Did I get that right?

tnis0612 wrote in post #13548414
So after reading this thread i'm kind of interested in trying something like this..let me know if I have this right! So you set yourself up on a tripod in bulb mode...open the shutter..maybe have someone else swirl around your subject with sparklers...then maybe hold your flash off camera (no triggers or anything required) to get a little shadow on them if you want it and when your subject is in the desired pose hit them with a pulse of light and as soon after close the shutter? Did I get that right?

If your camera can do rear curtain sync, that's all you really need and you leave the flash on the camera. The first curtain will open, take in the motion for x seconds in the ambient light then the flash will fire right before the second curtain closes. Depending on your flash/camera, you can get a pre flash before the first curtain opens so your flash power will be right. Use shutter priority and manually prefocus on your subject. Just play with the settings. There really isn't much to this, it's creative, easy to experiment and film is cheap!

Kaljam wrote in post #13548798
If your camera can do rear curtain sync, that's all you really need and you leave the flash on the camera. The first curtain will open, take in the motion for x seconds in the ambient light then the flash will fire right before the second curtain closes. Depending on your flash/camera, you can get a pre flash before the first curtain opens so your flash power will be right. Use shutter priority and manually prefocus on your subject. Just play with the settings. There really isn't much to this, it's creative, easy to experiment and film is cheap!

True, as that is how the shot of my nephew was done. However, using bulb allows you to get more creative with the light as you have as much time as you need to do whatever you want vs the 30sec. limit in Manual mode. As for the shot of my nephew, the camera was sitting on a trashcan and he just spun around with the sparkler until the flash went off. Pretty simple.