Those are fantastic !

Shenanigans.

That kicks ass.

Really cool- thanks subby

Wow! Very, very neat.

Dang good thing digital film is cheap. That looks like several nights of work. Nice end product, at least interesting.

That is indeed some really cool stuff. :D

Didnt I see this in a Sprint commercial?

Wow! They are so colorful! Pretty! I wish I could make something like that!

worthlessjuan: Dang good thing digital film is cheap. That looks like several nights of work. Nice end product, at least interesting.


It really only takes a few minutes, unless you're talking about "several nights of work" *before you get it right*.

Basically, you use a very small aperture on the camera lens so that you need a very long shutter speed to get the correct exposure, and then you just stand there with a flashlight and draw the images in the air.

you can see him in the last one....wondered if his shape would show up in one of the exposures.

Some crappy ones I took while testing a remote switch for my camera.





/I can't draw with a pen/pencil and paper, so what did you expect :P

It's a UFO .....

And for those of you in the know.

Don't bother, there's no EXIF info in his pictures.

neato.

I'll be impressed when he does a moaning Lisa.

ciwrl: Didnt I see this in a Sprint commercial?

Yes they did, and thank you, I've been beating my head against the screen trying to remember who made these commercials.

ScottRiqui [TotalFark] Quote 2009-02-14 09:46:03 PM
worthlessjuan: Dang good thing digital film is cheap. That looks like several nights of work. Nice end product, at least interesting.

It really only takes a few minutes, unless you're talking about "several nights of work" *before you get it right*.

Basically, you use a very small aperture on the camera lens so that you need a very long shutter speed to get the correct exposure, and then you just stand there with a flashlight and draw the images in the air.

That was my point, they probably had to do each one at least twice, maybe 10 times to get it right.

I know how to do the photo, the hand dance with the light is the tricky part.

But thanks for the comment.

I'm rather impressed with the green dragon, no Photoshop.

For the lazy ones... or folks without a decent digital camera.

Make your own (new window)

I love seeing stuff like this despite it reminding me that I'm, at the best of times, a mediocre photographer.

A couple of my own.

Huskadoodle: I'll be impressed when he does a moaning Lisa.

I did a moaning Lisa once...was a great night...

ScottRiqui: Basically, you use a very small aperture on the camera lens so that you need a very long shutter speed to get the correct exposure, and then you just stand there with a flashlight and draw the images in the air.

That's easy enough to understand.

What I don't understand is why the artist himself isn't in any of the pictures, blocking the background if only as a ghostly figure.
=Smidge=

Cool. The only problem he would have is being unable to see what his previous lines were, like you can when you use paints.

Found one with the artist I did

What I don't understand is why the artist himself isn't in any of the pictures, blocking the background if only as a ghostly figure.
=Smidge=

Ok, you understand the long exposure. So lets say it's a 60 second exposure and he is only in 10 seconds of it total. you don't see him. The flashlight of course is the brightest source so it shows up in that 10 seconds.

I used to do a lot of pinhole photography with one hour plus exposures and you could have all kinds of fun with that :)

Smidge204: ScottRiqui: Basically, you use a very small aperture on the camera lens so that you need a very long shutter speed to get the correct exposure, and then you just stand there with a flashlight and draw the images in the air.

That's easy enough to understand.

What I don't understand is why the artist himself isn't in any of the pictures, blocking the background if only as a ghostly figure.
=Smidge=


As long as there's no light directly illuminating the artist, the most you'd see of the him would be a darkening of the background where the artist stood between the camera and the background. How much the background is darkened depends on how long the artist was standing in one place relative to the total time the shutter was open. If the total shutter speed was several minutes, but it only took 30 seconds to "draw" the light picture, the darkening wouldn't be noticeable.

In the Picasso photograph shown in the thread, Picasso did the "drawing" in total darkness, and then set off the flash at the very end of the exposure to capture himself and the background in the picture. The technique is called "rear-curtain sync" or "second curtain flash".

Smidge204: What I don't understand is why the artist himself isn't in any of the pictures, blocking the background if only as a ghostly figure.
=Smidge=

He's a vampire.

Remarkably cool. I'd be surprised if even fark could find something snark-worthy..

Really cool.

This all reminds me of some things I loved as a child, namely:

(1) "Harold and the Purple Crayon," maybe my favorite story ever, and
(2) the various guys on "Sesame Street" who could draw in the air, because of course they were really painting on glass, but to my kid self it seemed they could draw in the air and it was the coolest thing evar.

And of course much later

(3) those Sprint commercials, but that only reminded me of (1) and (2).

xbattlewax: Make your own (new window)

Obligatory "dis looks shopped" :D

Smidge204 : What I don't understand is why the artist himself isn't in any of the pictures

Others have already explained it, but I can do it with pictures.



This is a 10 second exposure @ f/4 (look at the EXIF info). Not only can't you see me, you also can't see anything that's in the background.

So basically, you have practically no light information about me and my background caught on the sensor.

Now, if I spent 10 seconds drawing that, then left the shutter open for say another 40-60 seconds (whatever it takes to properly expose the background), you would get a viewable background, with the bright laser light in the foreground, but there wouldn't be any trace of me.

The length of time that I was exposed in the shot was simply not long enough for me to have a visible impact on the final image.

Somaticasual: Remarkably cool. I'd be surprised if even fark could find something snark-worthy..

I don't know what city this guy is taking those pictures (looks rather desolate), but around here, that's a good way to get your camera stolen.

Soon there will be television shows to explain the true origins of these pictures.

lordargent: Now, if I spent 10 seconds drawing that

What did you use to draw it, a gun sight or laser pointer or what?

I'm thinking maybe I need to try it myself... I do have a gun sight I can borrow so it'd be red I guess.

I know someone with a blue laser pointer, it would be neat to try :)

Thanks CaptainScrewy I have been meaning to find that image for a while.

Wow, that is so neat!

Is it actually digital?

See one thing that comes to mind is film has no technical limits on how slowly it can be "exposed".

CCD imagers, however, can only be light-charged so slowly before the electrical leakage on the charge inside each pixel overwhelms the actual light. And under very low light conditions, the electrical noise on the image sensor pixels will overwhelm the actual signal. AFAIK it's a pretty short time too, so I think what's actually happening is taking a lot of photos and summing them together. But even that's problematic, because it takes a very low-light, high dynamic range CCD to still be able to capture the landscape without becoming totally saturated with the flashlight light.

ScottRiqui: As long as there's no light directly illuminating the artist...


I_Can't_Believe_it's_not_Boutros: He's a vampire.


I think the choice is pretty obvious here...
=Smidge=

I'm waiting for Rule 34 to kick in.

Used to do stuff like that in high school with a 35mm camera. It's fun to see when you process the pictures and they really turn out good. This of course was all before that digital SLR stage where you saw results instantly.

/noobs
//like it when you wear black pants/shirt with a red filter to look like a floating head
///Love film, still prefer my FM10 over my D40 most of the times

Oznog: Is it actually digital?

See one thing that comes to mind is film has no technical limits on how slowly it can be "exposed".

CCD imagers, however, can only be light-charged so slowly before the electrical leakage on the charge inside each pixel overwhelms the actual light. And under very low light conditions, the electrical noise on the image sensor pixels will overwhelm the actual signal. AFAIK it's a pretty short time too, so I think what's actually happening is taking a lot of photos and summing them together. But even that's problematic, because it takes a very low-light, high dynamic range CCD to still be able to capture the landscape without becoming totally saturated with the flashlight light.


Even traditional film becomes non-linear with very low light levels or extremely short shutter speeds. Not as bad as digital, though. Still, you can easily do multi-minute exposures with digital cameras. You need to set the ISO as low as possible (you're going to do this anyway, since you're looking for long exposure times). It also helps to not have an excessive number of pixels crammed onto a tiny sensor. You definitely wouldn't want to do this with a camera phone or a 12 MP "point & shoot" (kind of a moot point anyway, since you usually can't lock the shutter open on those kinds of cameras).

Took this one (above) of my wife playing with a torch in Hawaii back in 2004. The best results are with lasers if you want them on a surface rather than free floating...



Lasers (above) and plastic Lightsabers (below) are fun too!

So...how much x do you guys do?

/CaptainScrewy, thanks for the Picasso. It made me feel better.

i am REALLY DISAPPOINTED that no price was put on that 6 legged spider.

dammit. i expected torches AND PITCHFORKS.

mxwjs: i am REALLY DISAPPOINTED that no price was put on that 6 legged spider.

"Bounty hunters? We don't need their scum!"

lordargent: This is a 10 second exposure @ f/4 (look at the EXIF info). Not only can't you see me, you also can't see anything that's in the background.

Thanks for this info! I am hoping to try this out with my kid, and wasn't sure how to go about it.

What is more important to time; the dancer or the dance?

;)

Rogerdude58: What I don't understand is why the artist himself isn't in any of the pictures, blocking the background if only as a ghostly figure.
=Smidge=

Ok, you understand the long exposure. So lets say it's a 60 second exposure and he is only in 10 seconds of it total. you don't see him. The flashlight of course is the brightest source so it shows up in that 10 seconds.

I used to do a lot of pinhole photography with one hour plus exposures and you could have all kinds of fun with that :)

itazurakko [TotalFark] 2009-02-14 10:43:25 PM
lordargent: Now, if I spent 10 seconds drawing that

What did you use to draw it, a gun sight or laser pointer or what?

A single red LED. The kind that companies put on dinky keychains and the like give out for free (this one had a Sony logo I think).

A LASER of any sort would be overkill.