Thread: Photo Tip

Tweet

I know alot of people try to take night photos of their haunt and end up having trouble. I wanted to show a photo technique that we use that helps us photograph a large outdoor area with little to no light. Its called painting with light.

Things you need.
-Camera (of course) should have variable settings on it and the best thing to do is have it on automatic setting if you are not familiar with it.

-A tripod or solid surface to put the camera on

-A good flashlight.

First set up the camera on the tripod or surface. Do not have the flash turned on or this wont work.

Set the timer on the camera..this gives you time to get ready and you wont have to rush.

Go to take the shot, as the timer runs down get your flashlight ready as soon as you hear the shutter open, wave the flashlight over the area that you are taking a photo of. Try to do it in an even strokes.

Here is a photo I took using a flash. This is just to give you an idea.


You will notice that the flash only lights up a very small area.

This photo is without flash. The light from the windows is bright but it does not illuminate the rest of the area.


This photo was taken while using the painting with light method.

This house is a little over 150 feet from where I have the camera set up.

Now to apply this to Halloween shots you can try using colored lens' (blue, red, green etc...) I used a pretty strong flashlight for my shots but you might try using one that is not so strong so it will still have a dark look.

Hope this helps

Here is a closer shot of the house using the same technique

Johnson,

Thank you for posting your tip, have never heard of it before. I am sure you have a lot of photo tricks you have learned over the years. Now we can all take CSI style pictures of our crime...errr.. haunt scenes and get it closer to what we actually are portraying. I am going to use this on Halloween to get the pics.

Nice - I like the "painting with light" technique!

That is awesome. This is a problem I have with taking night shots. Thanks for the tip. Can't wait to try it.

Why can't you just point the flashlight rather than waving it ?

Originally Posted by HalloweenDan

Why can't you just point the flashlight rather than waving it ?

the waving allows you to cover a larger area. If you just spot it you will only have one area lit up. Also the beam is usually stonger in the center and difused on the sides. Waving it will cancel that. Now if you have the beam in a large spread that might be ok.

I have a photo, unfortunately I cant use it, where the flashlight spots on certain items. I might try to recreate it tonight at home and post it to show you how it looks.

The main thing is try it out before hand and see which technique works best.

Thats a very cool idea, i like the colored light idea.

Thanks for posting this!!!! My night shots really suck! I guess I might need to invest in a better camera and tripod.

Do you know what the shutter speed was on any of these?