What a super fun extra season of the Perfect Picture. It is not only fun to look at, but also to analyze for yourself why one photo is better than the other. And sometimes I want to climb through the image to give some extra clues... recognizable?
I'm a bit behind with the series (long live looking back) and yesterday it was my turn to make a lightpainting. Immediately I was on the edge of my seat. Super cool of course. They set to work with stars, bicycle lights and tube-like things.
Tim was unfortunately struggling a lot and Jochem also had a lot of blur. How is that possible my daughter asked... an interesting question. Do you have an idea? And why wasn't it bothering Thomas?
Let's start with the basics. Lightpainting revolves around a slow shutter speed. You leave the shutter open for as long as the time you need to make the drawing or the light effect. This is often between 6 and 15 seconds.
If you shoot, you already know that a shutter speed below 1/60 can already cause motion blur. So 6 or 8 or 10 seconds altogether. That goes wrong with Tim and Jochem. They have the shutter open for a long time, on a tripod, but the tripod keeps the camera still but not the model. And the face receives light from the light source that passes in front of the face. That is not 6 or 8 or 10 seconds, but a few seconds and you can never really stop someone for a few seconds.
So we see motion blur coming right here.
But what about the photo of Thomas? Where was the light source?
Right...behind the model (Tim) and not in front of him. So he became a silhouette. And movement in a silhouette is almost impossible to see because you don't see any details in the silhouette. And that's why his photo is so extremely successful!
But if you don't want a silhouette? Surely that is not possible?
I have good news. This photo was taken by Nicole during a LightPainting workshop in my studio. And you see the model illuminated and no movement.
How?
What we use is flash light in the foreground and the light tube (durable light) in the background.
The flash only lasts 1/2000 of a second and the rest of the front.... is black (because the tube only comes through the back just like Maurice's silhouette photo). So nothing happens photo-technically with light at the front.
And so you can still get a well-exposed model without movement with a slower shutter speed.
Would you like to participate in a LightTube workshop? Then keep an eye on the dates here:
https://shop.marcellogeerts.com/products/lighttube-outdoor
https://shop.marcellogeerts.com/products/lighttube-sport-portraits-pro