DIYPhotography.net

If you thought that the physics behind light painting involves photon accumulation, advanced sensor technology and high end buffer management, you have it all wrong.

The truth of the thing, as Destin explains, is that light painting is done by cute girls throwing beads at boxes. OK, it does not, but Destin and daughter (and Wes Whaley) do a terrific job and explaining all this stuff in a fun and super easy to understand way. (Plus you get to see some of the most unique pregnancy photoshoots ever). Hit the jump to see the full video. Click to continue ›

Sometimes the most amazing things happen when you leave your shutter open for a long duration. Especially if you do it in the rain, while pointing a 200 mW Laser across it.

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L.A. based photographer Eric Curry likes it big when it comes to light painting. Actually he likes it huge and would stop at nothing smaller than a B-25 Bomber.

Eric creates complex composites of partly lit areas of the complete picture. The amazing thing is the magnitude of objects Eric chooses to photograph.

In Eric's American Pride And Passion he light paints objects in connection with the American spirit. Luckily, Eric shares video tutorials of his work. Click to continue ›

If you love photography and you love painting, imagine how much you would love light painting.

It is called painting with light because this is what you are actually doing while taking the shot - painting with light. Aside from being darn beautiful form of photography, it is also a pretty darn cool to spend an evening or a night.

The requirements are very minimal you would need a camera that you can set on long exposure, a tripod and some light, light a flash light, matches or one of the oh-so-cool gadgets I'll share below.

If you want to get the general idea, a great place to do it is here, and if you want the jump start treatment, you can get it here.

The last thing you will need is tools, we will cover tool in a little while, but if you want to get a feel for the variety of things you can do check out this post. Click to continue ›

We have shown screen doing 3D extrusion before using both iPads and iPhones, but this is the first time we are featuring a tutorial that uses a 30" monitor.

Photographer Zeke Adam (Flickr) agreed to share the secrets behind his non-existing man series, which basically light paints a non existing man. Duh... While Zeke uses high end software like 3D Studio Max and Cinema 4D, similar results can be achieved with free software (like Blender, which we featured before). Some of the steps are too complex to include in this tutorial, but we will refer you to the relevant places to learn or download shortcuts.

It's all Zeke from now. Click to continue ›

Anybody who does not like fire raise their hands. What no hands up? OK, I am not really surprised that the readers of this blog like fire.

In that case you'll be happy to learn that the guys over at Photo Extremist released a video guide [after the jump] on how to make steel wool light painting. We sued to do lots of those in the boy scouts at the end of year fire display. We did not even used the whisk, just put some metal wire around the steel wool.

When you go out and do this, make sure you protect both yourself (goggles, gloves, long sleeves) and the surrounding (fire extinguisher, no dry leafs and so on). Those sparks seem small but they are nasty. Click to continue ›

Looks like LED light sabers for light painting capture that interesting Venn Diagram intersection between photography and hackering.

After featuring Lightscythe - a light painting LED wand that can be loaded wireless comes another detailed tutorial from Michael Ross, which may be more suitable for the beginner Arduino. photographer.

The wand is build on the Arduino platform and can be loaded with still images that are shown as the wand is swayed from side to side. The results are amazing. Click to continue ›

If you've been following the blog for a while you know that there are some neat iPad/iPhone apps that create spatial drawings, like Holographium or Aurora Bulb for Android. 

Wulfrano Moreno shares on how he achieved a similar project using Peggy, an Arduino-based LED PegBoard.

Taking the photograph above required a combination of several skills: A bit of electricity engineering, some open source enthusiasm and a bit of light painting know how.

This image evolved as I started experimenting with light painting.  At first I started creating some shots using the typical DIY “orb tool”. As I got more drawn to the subject I came across an amazing video of some guys light-painting using an iPad. Click to continue ›

Gavin from Sydney (Flickr user Mechatronics) came up with this amazing application for programmable LED strips.

Using an small Arduino to control 2m programmable LED strip inside an acrylic tube he created the ultimate light painting saber. Gavin uses the Arduino and a Xbee wireless set to send images and text that appear as light painting when he swipes the saber at long exposure.

The applications are endless, as the set of images below suggests. Spesifically, I am waiting for the light painting marriage proposal.

Here comes the cool bit, the entire build tutorial can be found on Gavin's site here. Click to continue ›

See that nice aura on the picture to the left? No... it was not taken using the new generation of psychic point and shoot, not is it the result of using high def video capture.

This image was made using long exposure light paint and a simple accessory. (If you have no clue what light painting is, click here for DIYP's entire folder of  light painting tutorials)

In this short and sweet tutorial, Renard Nicolas is going to explain how to achieve this effect. Click to continue ›