Mini Phototography Session From/For the Novice

A small lesson in extended exposure photography!!  Mind you I am STILL learning about my fabulous camera, but I figured out something neat, and thought that a few others might find it useful to build on, or use it for other projects!!  I have also seen others use sparklers at 4th of July using the same theory!

So, last night, I was flipping thru a few websites, and saw an idea with the city lights of SF with the extended exposures, and car lights "streaming", and thought I would try it with a flash light!  So, here are a few of the pictures, with my "how-to's" down below!!  I shot these with a Canon T1i and 18-55mm lens.  Editing was done in Creative Memories Memory Manager editing program.

it was so much fun! and super easy! It took me about 5 practice

shots before I got it down. I used my front room, but didnt do

anything special, no sheets, etc. I did wear a black sweatshirt. It

was a smaller flashlight, larger than a pen, smaller than a maglite.

I might try a little bigger next time and play with it. Tripod,

Camera set on Tv, ISO-100, initially I had the shutter set for 3-4

seconds, but realized, for bigger names, I needed more time, and it

looked better if I wasn't rushed. So, I knew I would be about 10' from

the camera. The overhead light is too far away to use my AF and
timer, so i left lights off, and focused flashlight on the back of the
couch where I would stand to get camera to zoom in and focus.
Hindsight-I could have turned AF off and MF, yep.

So, I would get the camera focused, and have timer set for 2 seconds,
have all lights off in room, click shutter, shut off flashlight, run
over to my position, put arm in starting postion of letter for cursive
name, turn on flashlight and begin!!

Draw-Fluid, loopy, smooth, wide, high, above the camera, start far left!!

Now, I am a Lefty, thru and thru... You will write the letters as you
would on paper, because you will flip them in the photo editing
program.

Another tip, set the tripod about waist level and draw above the
camera, up on the wall over the top of the camera, then you can kind
of follow and see what you are drawing too. Make sure you dont
overlap your letter too much.

when you are done, you can zigzag, loop-dee loop, turn off the
flashlight, etc, until the camera timer runs out. Play with it a bit,
when viewing it on the camera, it wont look like much because it will
be backwards. Later, in a photo editing program, you will have to
edit the shadows and highlights and midtones a bit to get the desired
effect and to tone down all background noise.

I still need to play with it more to get it right, but I think its off to a great start!!

I hope these are clear enough for you!

M