So I notice that a lot of people are posting pictures of themselves and their sabers on the forum. Many of them are great but they are mostly still frames. I think we as a community can step up our game.
We have all seen those nice trailing photos of light and fire. LED sabers in action are a great way to get some very interesting shots like this.
The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce people to action shots of sabers, and to a lesser extent, light painting in general. As a note, I am not a professional photographer. I just play around a bit. If anyone has any finer points or corrections to make, please feel free.
First things first, you will need a few things.
1. a cameraWhile the cameras on phones are getting better and better these days, there is really no substitute for a real digital camera. You need not have an expensive one exactly. Mine is an old Kodak Powershot. The main thing is that you need a camera that will let you manually adjust the aperture, exposure, flash, and iso settings.
Note: there are apps that will let you do a few of these on your phone but it is iffy at best. One that I found called photon capture lets you controll exposure, but without controlling flash, it just marks high points leading to an image like this
Notice that the it only picks up the brightest points, so it gets the saber as I run through the store but not me.
2. a tripodThis is not exactly necessary but is recommended. Without one, you can still set the camera on a surface, but you will be limited by the surfaces at your disposal. Hand held is not a real option with long exposure. You will still catch the light but stationary items will go wibblie. Note the street lamps in the back of this hand held picture.
A good tripod will give you flexibility.
3. a light sourceLightsabers will be the focus here but fire will also work, as will a simple flashlight.
4. darkThese work best if you have little to no ambient light. If you are in a lit room or outside when the sun is out, the best you can hope for is a ghost image of the saberist like the one seen here.
Now that you have the materials lets discuss the camera settings.
1. ISOISO is a setting that adjusts sensitivity to light. Higher ISO makes darker pictures more visible but leads to a grainy image. It is not that any of them will not be grainy, but a low iso setting makes the grain more fine. This is the setting I have the most trouble with on phone cameras. For saber action shots, I recommend an ISO setting around 100. I have found that this is a good balance between visibility and image quality.
2. apertureAperture has to do with depth of field. Most cameras have a variable aperture that can be set. If you have a zoom lens, you have variable aperture. For long exposure, you don't want the camera zooming or changing focus. I recommend an aperture setting between f8 and f16. This is a pretty small aperture. Wide aperture makes a lens fast, leading to crisp action shots. We want a trail and will get the crispness with a flash, so we want a slow lens.
3. curtain flashWith a long exposure, the flash will not be going off throughout the shot. You will have to decide where in the exposure you want it to happen. When the flash happens, the camera will capture the non-illuminated components, like the saberist. Second or last curtain flash (inexpensive cameras may only have 2 curtains) will end the shot with the flash. This will make it look like the light is trailing from the saber. First curtain flash will start by capturing the saberist and make it look like the light precedes the saber (think the vectors in Donnie Darko). I am partial to second/last curtain flash.
Note: the firework setting on a lot of cameras fails here. With no flash, you get the trail but the subject of the shot will be a blur at best like in the shot here, instead of a solid image like the one that follows
4. ExposureThis is an easy one to grasp. How long does the lens stay open? The longer it stays open, the longer the trail. With a long exposure, you can get creative and actually draw. With a mid range, you will capture a spin. With a quick, you will get a slight trail. You will have to play with this setting to suit your needs.
With a knowledge of these features and what they do, you can often save a few to your camera allowing you to get some pretty good shots on the fly. At any rate, it gives you more options than the still pose. Hope this helps. If so, feel free to stickie it.
