I needed a new challenge, so when I saw the beautiful full moon shining on the Buffalo River in Island Park, Idaho, I grabbed my spotlights, tripod and my trusty Nikon D7000. I set up my camera for a 30-second exposure at f/16 and 1600 ISO. I was happy with the moon shine burst of light I captured, so then it just took me a few tries to get the right amount of foreground light. I painted the light in to expose the foliage along the river bank. It was a blast! You will have to give this a try sometime this summer. I love the combination of blue sky and warmer foreground. Light painting is still one of my favorite and creative photographic techniques. I would love it if you would share some of your own light paintings. Feel free to leave a comment and link to your own images. Come on, you know you want to 🙂
Light Painting - f/16; 30"; 1600 ISO - Moon shine - Buffalo River - Island Park, Idaho
If you want to give this a try, here is a link to the amazing Brinkmann II Rechargeable Spotlight. For indoor light paintings, I use the Maglite XL100 dimmable LED light. Also, here is a link to my tutorial about table top light painting, which is the same basic process I used here: Table Top Light Painting Tutorial.
Beautiful picture! Love the composition of it.
Another beautiful shot Caryn! I love the depth , contrast and colors of this photo. Just enough light painting toset of the beauty of the setting, and the little bit of shine from the water adds the perfect touch.
Simply beautiful! Now I need to get some spotlights! What do you use?
I use the Brinkman II Rechargeable Spotlight. I added some links for you in this post. Have fun!
Beautiful – touch of the master’s hand! Keep sharing!!!!!
Thanks everyone, for you comments! Have a great week. I am headed to San Francisco, so if you have some good photography tips for me in that location, please share!
Thanks so much Caryn! If you haven’t already visited The Palace of Fine Arts, it’s a must!
http://www.palaceoffinearts.org/Welcome.html
We drove by the Palace at night and it knocked my socks off! Wow! I will have to go back in good light with a tripod. Incredible place and the lake for reflections could be awesome if their was no wind. Thanks for the tip!
Yay! So happy that “I” was able to give you a “Tip”! Can’t wait to see the pics!
That’s a neat – creative – idea!! That’s a great exposure too!
very creative approach, i like it.
I mysetelf, would have considered to take a second shot of the image without the blown out moon and would have pasted the moon back in here.
I would really also like to give this light painting a try. therefore: do you know a good light, that is ligher and could be used for air-travel? and maybe also available as 240v variant?
tip would be very appreciated
Thanks for the great idea! As for a light I do not know of one that is 240v but when I travel overseas I use an adapter system to convert the power of my appliances. I do have a smaller light that is part of a power tool combination. They are expensive though. Makita makes a nice flashlight that has a removable rechargeable battery you can use on their other tools, such as a drill. You would also need the charging base, so I don’t know it if would be any smaller. Any light will work, but to get enough power to light things up outside you need some kind of powerful spotlight. Those new xenon high output lights may do the trick. They are much smaller. You can adjust your white balance to work with any type of light. Or…since you obviously know how to edit… Just change the color balance of your image in post production. Some people who do light paintings like the challenge of getting everything with one exposure and use no editing. I believe in both methods. Good luck, and please send me a link when you try this out!