Saturday, January 19, 2013

How To Create A Stunning Light Painting Photo

Light painting photos can be created easily in the artistic world of trick photography. If you are a beginner to photograph tricks you can create artistic photographs similar to the ones created by the professional photographers. Creating your light painting in a dark room or at night is simple once you learn to follow the steps for it. A light painting can be quite interesting and great fun to create. How about creating a simple but stunning Spirograph photo? Photographers who are eager to create light paintings in simple and easy steps need to keep all other tasks aside in order to create a stunning light painting photo. So, are you ready? How To Create Stunning Light Painting Photos - The following steps will help you understand the tricks to creating a stunning light painting photo. They are quite easy to understand and follow. Step 1 - Choose a dark room where there is not much light after switching off the lights of the room. Step 2 - Choose anyone of the light sources like a flashlight or an LED light. Make sure that they give soft light in the dark room. Step 3 - Change the mode of the camera to manual mode. It is important to make sure that the camera is on manual settings in order to adjust the EXIF settings of the camera. Step 4 - Change the camera aperture settings to f/11, the shutter speed settings to 30" or just below the bulb and change the ISO to 100. Step 5 - Once the settings of the camera are ready, tie a long string to the flashlight or the LED light and hang the string from the ceiling of the room. This would make the flashlight or the LED light hang upside down facing the ground. Step 6 - Face the camera towards the flashlight by keeping it flat on the ground so that when the camera shutter is pressed it will start capturing the stunning light painting. Make sure that the focus of the camera is towards the flashlight and the flashlight is switched on. Step 7 - Once these settings are ready, turn on the camera, press the shutter button and you will hear the noise of the shutter opening in the camera. Start moving the string of the flashlight or the LED light in any motion, preferably, circular motion. Step 8 - The photo of the light painting will be captured within the 30 seconds when the shutter of the camera is opened and then the camera will close the shutter. The photograph has been captured by the camera within the 30 seconds timer. Step 9 - If required, you can edit your light painting photo using a photo editing tool to make the photo look soft or sharp. You can create Physiograms and Spirographs by using different attachments of threads to the flashlights or the LED lights. Moving the flashlights in a circular manner will create Spirographical light painting photos and moving the flashlight in the rectangular or horizontal manner will create a Physiogram photo. Once you have the skills and knowledge on how to create a simple light painting photo, you can create more artistic light paintings as you discover more about trick photography.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Cool Photo Effects for Stunning Images 

In case you are planning to move your photography skills to the next level, it is the best time to learn different photo tricks and photo special effects. You have to take note that there are three commonly used photo special effects that only require minimal effort in order to start. These special effects will not require you to purchase special equipment. You can start with any digital camera, preferably a DSLR along with a tripod. As for the software, you should have at least a reliable photo editing software such as the Adobe Photoshop. Once your photography skills improve, that is the time when you can invest on superior quality cameras as well as other photo special effects software. A good example of forced perspective photography is the Leaning Tower of Pisa showing tourists pushing the tower. This is a commonly used photography special effects trick for this popular landmark. The forced perspective utilizes optical illusion with the help of proper positioning of the subject matter and the photographer. In order to achieve this photo special effects trick, you have to position the person close to the camera so that they will appear bigger than the landmark from the point of view of the camera. The person will hold up their hands while the photographer will adjust the position in order to line up with the wall of the landmark to generate an illusion in which the tower is being pushed. There are also different varieties to this photo special effects trick, such as making the person appear taller than a building, interacting with a large object, holding up a person using bare hands and many more. The tilt-shift style involves tilting as well as the shifting of the lens of the camera in order to attain discerning focus. This photo special effects trick is commonly used in order to generate small versions of actual life images. A part of the photo is sharply focused while other areas are blurred gradually. It produces an illusion that individuals within the image appear small in size. The long exposure photo special effects trick is typically taken during night time or under low-light conditions. Usually, the shutter speed is set to a longer duration in order to obtain sharper details of the non-moving elements in your photos while smearing, blurring or obscuring the moving elements. With this photo special effects trick, you require a tripod in order to get clear images. These are the most commonly used photography special effects tricks. You can even integrate some of the methods in order to come up with your own creative photos

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Light Painting Tips for Beginners

Trick photography is becoming more and more popular especially with or young photographers. They desire to create beautiful light painting photos using all the possible tricks. Every beginner wants to be creative like the professional photographer, however there is an easy way to create these stunning images with little expense. Just a DSLR camera and a few items around the house is a great start. Here are some tips on Light Painting for Beginners Beginners to light painting need the easy to follow knowledge and tips to enhance the creative art of trick photography. So here are some light painting tools and tips for beginners that might be quite helpful. It is always better to do the light painting at night and on the manual mode of your camera. In the darkness the camera settings are different and keeping them as needed is most important. Light painting needs proper focus, light and clarity just like normal photographs. So, for the best light painting images it would be better to adjust the settings of the camera to manual mode and keep the aperture to f/11, the shutter speed to 30" and the ISO to 100. Be creative as much as possible because the creativity will make the painting look special and different from others. A creative photographer should have an idea how to make this possible. There are various ways of creating your light paintings and having knowledge of them is very important. Creating the Physiograms and the Spirograms can be done initially because that needs fewer effort from the photographer. Try creating your light painting at the comfort of your home instead of trying it out in the lawn. At home, the photographer can concentrate easily and it becomes very easy to show the perfection in the results. Installing the camera on a tripod is also necessary for beginners because it becomes easier to manage things. Trying the same light painting several times would result in that perfect photo. Using simple tricks at the beginning makes things easier for the beginners. Using LED lights, small flash lights and optical adapters are essential trick photography tools needed for creating spectacular light painting photos. The unwanted confusion can be easily eliminated from the process of creating the painting by the use of small, simple and easy sources of light. This also means that the photographer should try for a simple light painting instead of going for a difficult one. Creating a light painting around some still objects would be quite interesting and easy for a beginner. Choosing a fruit like an apple, banana and oranges and creating a light painting around them would be of great benefit. Initially, it is advisable to choose a dark red apple or the dark shades of the fruits so that the light painting can be easily done and edited. Photo editing your trick photo is also necessary for the beginners. So, now after understanding the above light painting tips for beginners make sure you do your research to find some excellent light painting tutorials.