Hi,
I'm getting prepared for some glow stick action fun next weekend. I got a box of glowsticks, a subject and an old warehouse to go shoot at. I've done glow stick trail shot before but never really managed to get a good exposition on it...Meaning I usually get a really good light trail but the subject and background usually are way dark and hardly noticable. I got myself a 580ex ii last week and was wondering if shooting a quick burst of flash before the end of my x-sec exposition would help putting some light on the subject and background with out getting blown out pictures...
Session will occur at night in a poorly lit warehouse so really low-light situation.
thx for the input
David
Yeah, you basically are dealing with two exposures. The long exposure to catch the arcs of the glow sticks through the air and a second exposure to light up the person.
The exposure of the background will likely be a function of ambient light plus flash light, adding the two together.
Put the two together and you should get something a little like this:
Another thing people have done (not for glow sticks though) is take a long exposure, and while the shutter's open, take a large flashlight and "paint" the subject. it's usually done while the subject is sitting still, but I would be curious what the outcome of something like that would be.
You can make the glow sticks brighter by heating them up.
Put them in boiling water for a bit.
You can microwave them, but they explode easily, so be very careful if you microwave them.
msauk wrote:
Can someone explain this in great detail? I am confused on how to make this work? I would love to do this with my kids, they would really love it
It's fairly simple.
Step 1: Find a dark space, some kids, and some glowsticks. Oh, and you'll need a flash.
Step 2: Set your camera to second-curtain (aka rear-curtain) sync.
Step 3: Set your camera to Manual, shutter speed to somewhere around 2-4 seconds and the aperture to whatever makes the glowstick trails look good. Experiment.
Step 4: Connect the flash to your camera and, assuming you have a Canon DSLR and a Canon EX-series flash, leave it in the ETTL mode.
Step 5: Mount the camera on a tripod (optional). Handheld works as well, but your glowstick trails might get wiggly.
