DIY Photography

Your one stop shop for everything photo-video

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

How to create striking colours in-camera with DIY light painting tubes

Jun 28, 2017 by John Aldred Add Comment

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

As well as often producing fantastic images, light painting is great fun. While you might have an idea in mind, you never really know what you’re going to get until you see the final shot. For some, that’s the whole point. The excitement of seeing if you can pull off your vision, and the unexpected surprises you encounter.

One difficulty in light painting, though, especially when your light source is in the shot is blowing out the highlights. In this video, light painting master Eric Paré offers a demonstration on how he builds his light painting tubes. Specifically, how he gets them to have such vibrant and striking colours. It all boils down to having the right gels.

The video comes in response to being asked a question about creating colour in-camera. Given Eric’s sense of humour, the video begins with an obvious way to get more colour “in-camera”. By dripping paint into it.

Of course, this isn’t quite what the person asking the question had in mind. So, Eric explains his process for creating his coloured light painting tubes. Which, not surprisingly, begins with a tube. A long transparent plastic tube, to be precise. These are available at hardware stores, or online at varying lengths.

Depending on the look you’re after, you can either use the tubes at whatever length they come. Or you can cut them down to your desired size. Then it’s a case of slotting a gel inside it. This lets you turn the basic tube into any colour you wish.

These work well, but this isn’t the final step of the process. To really create a nice smooth tone across the entire tube there’s one extra element that needs to be added. A long thin piece of white paper cut to the same size as your gel. You want something semi-opaque, like baking paper or tracing paper to give a nice smooth spread of light across the tube. The gel and paper are layered together and then rolled into a tube with the gel on the inside.

With this slotted inside the plastic tube, and a flashlight in one end, you can really see the difference. The transition and spread from one end of the tube to the other is much smoother than just using the gel alone. Eric shows the tube that was used to create the image at the very top of this post using both gel and paper.

And it was also used to create these images, too.

Eric also showed the advantage of gelling the entire tube rather than simply putting a piece of gel over the end of the flashlight. Gelling the end of the flashlight is obviously much cheaper, as you only need a small gel. But, it does provide a very different result.

As you can see, it’s quite a dramatic difference. I’d say neither method is right or wrong, they just give different looks. Sometimes you prefer one, sometimes you prefer the other.

After you’ve made your tubes, though, it’s time to just get out there and practice.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

This is how you make a perfect circle when light-painting with tubes Light-paint the rainbow with these awesome DIY light tubes How to fake a softbox by light painting with tubes for product photography Photographer Creates Supernatural Light Tubes With A DIY LED Hoop

Filed Under: DIY Tagged With: DIY, eric pare, inspiration, light painting, Light Painting Tubes

John Aldred: from diyphotography.net

About John Aldred

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

« Italian Nikon distributor sets new world record with the world’s largest “human image of a camera”
An interesting way to create great black and white images in Photoshop »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup
DIYPhotography

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Recent Posts

  • Here’s a bullet time video booth you can build yourself
  • Ricoh has discontinued the HD PENTAX-DA 21mm F3.2AL Limited silver lens
  • This “stellar flower” unravels the twilight’s evolution in 360 degrees
  • Strobes vs Continuous LEDs – Which is right for you?
  • Wave goodbye to Apple’s My Photo Stream next month

Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

Alex Baker: from diyphotography.netAlex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

David Williams: from diyphotography.netDave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred: from diyphotography.netJohn Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic: from diyphotography.netDunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy