The Art of Light Painting Photography - Light Trails
- Stephen Knight
- 4 hours ago
- 8 min read
Creating light trails, also known as light drawing, is a genre of light painting photography where light trails are intentionally created in front of the camera during a long exposure photo. These light trails can be freestyle light trails, orbs, half-orbs, light calligraphy, light plants, intricate light drawing, fiber optic brush effects, light tunnels, and much much more.
Contents
1. Camera Equipment
So what do you need to get started? Ideally you need an interchangeable lens camera (DSLR or Mirrorless) that can do Bulb (>30 second long) exposures. Some smart phones may also be useable for light painting, but with limitations. If buying new, go down the mirrorless camera route. One of the most important camera features to me is a decent wireless remote control. Many older cameras have infra-red remotes (such as the Canon RC6 and Sony RMTDSLR2). Most newer cameras have Bluetooth remotes (such as the Canon BR-E1 and Sony RMTP1BT). Most remotes should be able to start a Bulb exposure with one press, and stop the exposure with the second press. Be aware that a few cameras do not have wireless remote control options, relying on Bluetooth control from mobile phone apps which are more of an annoyance than assistance.
You don't necessarily need expensive lenses for light painting. Most of my light drawings are performed with apertures between f/5.6 and f/16, so ultra-fast lens are rarely required. Lens features that I do look for are good flare resistance, ability to produce good sunstars/starbursts, and ease of use for manual focus. I prefer to use wide angle focal lengths between 16mm to 24mm (full frame equivalent).
Other photography equipment that is required includes a tripod, and a glow-in-the-dark pebble. Tripods should have a good range of height and have adjustable legs to allow for stability on sloping or uneven ground. The glow-in-the-dark pebble will be discussed later.
You also need to be wearing black clothes, and have as much skin covered as possible to make you more invisible whilst you are light painting.
2. Light Painting Equipment
There are lots of options for how you create the light trails. Many light painting tools connect to a flashlight/torch via an adapter, and these include lightsabers, plexiglass rods and tubes, light blades, fiber optic brushes, fiber optic whips. These all create different textures. Some light painting tools such as LED light bars, scanners, and LED wands can create their own light. It is also possible to DIY light painting tools, with plenty of budget options. I usually list the equipment used on my social media posts.
These articles are useful for selecting lights and light painting tools.
Selection of light painting tools.
3. Planning the Scene
There are so many different types of light trails that can be created. Freestyle light trails, orbs, half-orbs, light calligraphy, light plants, intricate light drawings, fiber optic brush effects, light tunnels, and more. There are plenty of YouTube tutorials on how to create each of these, and in the next section I'll describe how I create a light plant. First you need to plan your scene, with questions 1) Where is it? (indoors, outdoor location, etc) 2) What are you going to create? 3) What tools and flashlight/torches do you need to get the desired effect? The light drawing may be pre-planned (I sometimes draw complex light plants beforehand), or the idea might come into your head mid-session. If you are light painting outdoors, I recommend trying to get your light painting the fit the environment, so you need to consider the overall photographic composition.
4. Camera Exposure and Tool Brightness
Ambient light and matching tool brightness are major considerations. If you are light painting in very dark conditions, you will have free reign of exposure and light source brightness settings. Your light painting tool brightness (and resulting light trail) needs to be correctly exposed. This may require adjusting the brightness of the light source, and/or camera exposure. I always recommend using flashlights (or other light sources) with multiple brightness levels and last mode memory (so that the light turns on at the previously used brightness level).
If you are using more than one tool then you need to match the brightness of each flashlight/tool combination, so that you don't end up with bright and dim light trails in the same photo. This may require some experimentation, and again, flashlights with multiple brightness levels and last mode memory will be very useful!
If you want to illuminate the scene with moonlight, or Milky Way "astro" background you will need to use an exposure that lets in more light (e.g. wider aperture, higher ISO, longer exposure) and very low light source brightness.
If there is high ambient light (such as from street lamps, cityscape background, bright moonlight, or light pollution reflecting off clouds), then you may have a race against time to as to avoid the ambient light over-exposing the photo. My plan of attack for light painting in high ambient brightness is to know what exposure you need to correctly expose the tool you are using. For example if I know that I can correctly expose a specific flashlight/tool combination on 100% brightness at f/11, ISO100. I will then take a test exposure with no light painting at this aperture and ISO setting, and make a guess at an exposure time e.g. 15 seconds. If the resulting scene is overexposed, then I have to reduce the exposure time accordingly, and also consider how this affects what I can light paint within that time limit. If the photo is underexposed, then I can increase the exposure time accordingly, and consider more light painting (don't forget you don't have to be light painting throughout the entire exposure). Also be aware that some flashlights reduce in brightness rapidly due to heat, so only have the light turned on whilst you are actually creating light trails! I prefer to use the 1800 lumen Light Painting Paradise LightPainter - Ryu's Lightworks V2 flashlight/torch in high ambient brightness conditions.
5. Setting Up
Once you have decided upon your location, tools, and composition, you need to set up your camera and tripod. Set the expected aperture and ISO settings. For most outdoor (non-portrait) light drawings I set the exposure time to Bulb. However, there are some cases where I will set a shorter exposure time, such as when creating light tunnels or light blade trails in a studio, or light painting in high ambient brightness. Unlike most types of photography, you need to completely ignore the histogram before taking the photo, as what you are taking a photo of doesn't exist when you are composing.
If you need a ground reference point for the light drawing, such as for a light plant, or orb, then I would advise using a glow-in-the-dark pebble (or other suitable glow-in-the-dark object) as your reference point. Some light painters also recommend adding glow-in-the-dark tape to their tripod feet so that they don't trip over the legs and knock over the tripod.
You will then need to focus the lens at, or close to the area that needs to be fully in focus. There are a few ways you can do this. Either temporarily illuminate the scene with a flashlight or headlamp, auto-focus on the required location, then switch to manual focus. Alternatively, if you have a mirrorless camera, illuminate the scene, switch to manual focus, and use focus peaking/magnification/assist to support manual focusing. Some lenses are easier to manually focus than others! You may need to turn on a setting to activate remote shutter control, and if you need to set a delay timer, you will need to set that as well.
Connect the flashlight to the tools, turn on the light, select the required brightness setting to be memorised by the flashlight, and turn it off. If you are using multiple tools (I often use between 2 to 5 flashlight/tool elements in a light painting), I recommend lining them up next to the tripod, illuminated with very dim lighting (such as from an LED Tea Light or Headlamp on <1 lumen moonlight setting) so that you can locate them in the dark. Also, make sure you can move around the location safely in the dark, use dim lighting in-between taking photos so that your eyes can adjust to the dark.
6. Let's Light Paint!
Now for the fun bit - the actual light painting. There will be lots of variations in workflow depending on what you are creating. I will write this based on the creation of a light plant (as per the below photo). Light drawing is like real drawing, but just in mid-air. Instead of a pencil touching the paper to create each pencil stroke, the flashlight or light source is turned on and off to create each light trail.
Setup the camera on the tripod. Set Bulb exposure, f/11, ISO160. Manually focus using focus peaking/assist and a headlamp for light.
Setup the two flashlight/tool combinations - A) Ants on a Melon RGB Critter BT with 24" Lumi Saber Honeycomb, Blade Holder, and Mini Triangle Blade. (Sea Weed and Good Times presets in playlist, Analogue on, Momentary on, Button lights off); B) Ants on a Melon RGB Critter 2.0 with 1/2"x 1/4" Acrylic Writer (Green colour, 40% brightness, Analogue on, Momentary on, Button lights off).
Move to the starting reference point (glow-in-the-dark pebble) with the flashlight/tool combination A - Trigger the start of the Bulb exposure with the remote.
Create the large green light trail, holding the momentary switch to create light.
Press the down navigate button (with light off) and create the large multi-coloured light trail holding the momentary switch to create light.
Swap over the tools to flashlight/tool combination B.
Create the 5 narrow green light trails, holding the momentary switch to create light. Hold the light's position for 5 seconds at the end of each light trail to create the starburst effect.
Trigger the end of the Bulb exposure with the remote.
Make your way to the camera, and take a look at your photo. If you have long exposure noise reduction turned on (which removes most "hot pixels" from the photo) then you might need to wait a while for the image to appear. It is highly unlikely that the first attempt will be the final attempt, so don't be upset if you need to change the camera exposure, flashlight brightness, or refine your light drawing. I average around 4 attempts until I'm happy, though my worst case scenario was 25 attempts!
You may also need to add additional light to a scene. This genre of light painting is discussed in The Art of Light Painting Photography - Illumination.
Also, be aware that it takes a lot of practice to get some light drawings to a standard that you may be happy with. Many of my earlier light plants were pretty terrible compared to some of my latest ones. It helps if you have good 3D spatial awareness, I'm not one of them!
After light painting, you will need to post process your photos. I use a mixture of global and local adjustments in Lightroom. I have created some useful Lightroom presets for light painting photography.
Here is a video I have made in 2023 (re-)creating a Light Plant (with added ambient light so that you can see what I'm doing).
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