Take Your Instagram To The Next Level: Painting With Light

1. Intro: Hey, guys, welcome to my channel. My name is Kyle. I'm the co founder of Small Media Company called Kif Concepts. Now Kif is a South African slang word for, like, really cool. Excellent. So in effect, our company is called excellent concepts, but we like to keep a local. So we went with Kif. A lot of people think that it's my name, but my name is Kyle just to clear that up. So if you're trying to me in the comments section below, just remember that I'm Kyle, not Gift. So this course is basically one of the techniques that we teach our clients. It's what we call painting with light. So it's basically a long exposure photography that we're gonna put it a little bit of an artistic twist to. It's something that know a lot of people are doing yet, but it's starting to falter in. I'm sure you've noticed that a lot of Instagram influences have started posting long exposure. Photography photos Capturing this stars in the night sky with a tent in the foreground that is long exposure photography. So we're gonna take long exposure photography and add a little bit of a twisted so it's a little bit more unique to you and a little bit more artistic. In the course, I'll cover a bit of the technical stuff as well as the settings that you would need to put in place as well of some planning that you can put in place just to make sure that you don't waste your time out there when you're taking the photos. Also, these types of photos will be taken at night. So most dear, so are and Marylise cameras will struggle to focus with not enough light on the subject. So I'll show you some focusing hacks that we use to make sure that you get some super crispy photos. Okay, cool. With all that being said, it's just strange to the first video on me to cover a little bit of the technical side, as well as the settings that we're gonna put in place on. If you have any questions, just drop them in the comments section alone. I'll get straight to them. And also don't forget to review my plus and, of course, please follow my channel. It helps me to create a community that we can all enjoy. Let's jump straight into the first video and I'll see you there 2. Settings: Hey, guys, welcome to the first video of the cloths in this first class. I'm going to cover a little bit of the technical stuff just to get a little bit of a better understanding, especially for those of you who are aspiring or amateur photographers. So I'm just going to cover over just quickly just to give a little bit of our understanding of what's happening inside the camera during long exposure photography. So the best way that I can describe this is to use a DSLR camera. So on the inside of the camera where the shutter is, you'll see it's in mirror. When you take a regular photo, you'll see that this shutter opens and closes extremely fast. So during long exposure photography, what we want is for that shattered to stay open as long as possible. So what we want is for that shutter to stay open and expose that image sensor to the light , so that allows the subject to move through the frame and have the center captured the light in motion rather than rather than stop it in place. So let me quickly turn this camera around, and I'll show you the settings that we're going to use to take these types of photos. Okay, so here we go with the basic settings. And yes, that is dinner star Gary and riding a velociraptor. Uh, so you want to go to your eso settings? We want to sit down all way to 100 you want to move over to your aperture, which is the F stops. We'll move that down to its minimum number, which would mean the apertures at its widest. And then we move over to the shutter speed where we want to take it away. Down to 30 seconds said you would require to be really dark for a 32nd exposures. Okay, so those the basic settings that we're gonna use, I'm just gonna recap them here again just to make sure that we have a complete understanding. I guess the first thing that I did was I adjusted. The eyes are now the ice over is basically your image sensor's sensitivity to light. So the higher the eyes are more sensitive, it would be so if the eyes so is too high. What's gonna happen is you're gonna get a lot more detail in the surrounding areas of your photo, which is going to make it look a little bit more messy. What we're gonna want is a flat black background with only your light painting. So then the next thing that set was the aperture. So the aperture is this small set of rings inside your lens actually adjust to allow mawr less light into the sensor. So what we've done is we set it to its widest. What we've done is we've got the maximum amount of light coming to the center, but the sense of not being overly sensitive to the light and then the next setting that I went to was the shutter speed. So I took the shutter speed all the way down to its lows, which was 30 seconds. So most DSLR and Marylise cameras will have the 32nd shutter speed. That's probably the maximum that you're gonna need for these types of photos. The longer you exposed for, the more life's gonna be picked up in surrounding areas. So we may actually need to play around with between 10 to 30 seconds on find your sweet spot, depending on how dark it is in your environment. But we'll cover that in the planning stages of this course. So two things that I didn't add while showing you the settings was to make sure that your flash is turned off for a lot of deer. Savarin Merlis cameras have an automated flash that will pop up. Flash from the camera thinks that the scene is too dark, but this can be alleviated by making sure that the flash is turned off in your settings there. A lot of cameras will not allow automatic flash in manual mode, so you should be all right. And then the last thing is just a little pro tip is to set a countdown timer. So when taking long exposure photography, that first initial click when you press the shutter could be enough to introduce a bit of shake into your camera, which will make your image of little bit blurry. So what we like to do is we set a 12th count on time. This allows you to place your camera on its tripod on a stack of books or on a table, and then press the shutter button. Let the camera go, which then allows time for you to move to your position as well as some time to make sure that the camera is completely stable. 3. Focusing: Hey, guys. So in this video, I'm gonna cover some simple focusing hacks that we can use to make sure that you get super crispy photos when you're taking these types of long exposure photography. So most, if not all, DSLR and Merlis cameras will struggle to focus on the subject when there's not enough light . So there's some simple techniques that we can use to make sure that our subject or the area that we're gonna shoot and is in focus before you hit that shutter button. So the first trick, when using auto focus, is to use a flashlight to shine on your subject. While focusing. Get your shutter to lock on that subject, removed the lights and then hit the shutter button. This basically tricks your camera into focusing than removing the light source, and the camera is already primed. And then, if order focus decides to fail, you best thing to do, especially if you're using a DSLR camera. You can flip your lens from auto focus over to manual focus, which will allow you to focus on your subject by adjusting the rings on your lens. So I'm gonna show you a bit of a makeshift demonstrations so that you can see what this looks like in action. So you'll see that even in a situation like this, where there is a little bit of light, the camera will struggle to focus even when using a days a guided. See that focus? But it's still struggles to focus. So what we can do big news, a flashlight or even something like a laser beam. So I mean, you use a laser to shine on the subject, which will then allow me to focus on the subject. Take the shot. We can then use that same torture, that same light to create something interesting in your image. So let's have a look what this looks like. So that was my demonstration on how to use a flashlight or, in that case, a laser beam to help focus on your subject the other way. Obviously, that I mentioned before would be to use the flashlight or laser to shine on your subject and then manually adjust your focus ring until your subject is in focus. 4. Planning: Hey, guys, welcome to the planning section of this course. So what I've got your for you is a shoot checklist. Now, this is something that I use for. Whenever I do a shoot, I'll always put something together to make sure that I have a guide to follow so that I don't forget anything, and I make sure that I get the photo that I want, so I'm just gonna run through them. Some of the stuff is really simple, but I'll talk through each point as we go along. Case the first up. I've just got a list of what you need, So that would be your camera, obviously your tripod or table with a stack of books. Then you would need a flashlight. I said Flashlight year, but it can be anything as long as it's source of light. I would recommend not using a laser, however, because lasers can be damaging to the image sensor in your camera. So it's It's preferable not to use a laser when doing these types of things. And then just one last thing on the what you need list is make sure that you have your memory card in so that you don't waste your time. And then in the tasks section, we've got the first item, which is picking an area that has the least amount of light in it. So the bottom of your garden if you don't have a garden inside your room where you can close off all the doors and windows, turn off all the lights, turn off all sources of lights like porch lights, TV's cell phones, anything that can add unnecessary detail to your scene. And the third item on the tasks list seems like a funny one. But it's always a good idea to make sure that in the area that you shooting, that there's nothing in the way that you might trip over like a wire or a chair or your cat . So it's best to just make sure that there's nothing in the way when you hit that shutter button and you walk over to start painting your name, you don't want to trip over anything. I'm trying to look after you guys. Yeah, and then the fourth thing is to flip over into manual settings and a justice settings like we discussed in the Settings video, then set your 12th countdown timer so that you have some time. Once you've hit that shutter button to walk over to where you're gonna be and wait for that shutter to open, it's always best to keep your torch off until you hear the shutter open call, then added a list of just some things to remember. This goes back to the last point as well that I just said, I need to remember to turn off your light once you finished writing, because what will happen is while the shutter is still open, it's going to capture whatever light is there. So, for example, in this photo here, you can see the light source wasn't completely covered, so it was obviously on the back of somebody's hand, and some red light came through after they finished writing the name. So turning the light off well, then up to create a really flat black background, and the number three on this list would be to try and avoid shining your torch on any areas of the scene that might bring out unnecessary details. So, for example, in this photo is this angel on a swing? But there's some light spilling out from the torch on to the ground, which actually ends up taking away some of the focus from your actual subject, because the camera will continue to pick up light while the shutters open. So I'm gonna add a couple more things to this list just so that we can get this quite comprehensive. So what we want to add is selecting the right exposure time, so we've got it set at 30 seconds at the moment. Now we want to try and figure out whether 30 seconds is gonna be too much or if we need to adjust it down to something like 10 seconds. So for 30 seconds, we're talking pitch black, no sources of light for 10 seconds. We're talking slightly visible light. You're gonna want to play around between 10 and 32nd exposure time so that you can get to the right sweet spot. So, for example, you can go for an image that's completely black in the background like this. Or you can adjust your shutter to a speed where you can still capture a little bit more of the details, as well as capturing light like we did in this image. So your subject has been lit because your exposure was long enough to allow more light. That was reflecting off them to be captured by the camera and also allowed you enough time to draw wings on them. So it's a bit of a trial and area adjusting your shutter speed a little bit slower, a little bit shorter, just to try and capture the image that you want. So you might actually end up finding that a slower shutter speed might create an image that you weren't expecting. And it might even be better than what you planned. So it's good idea to always play around with it, and I hope this will make sense. But if you have any questions, please feel free to drop them in the comments section, and we can discuss it in more detail. So let's move over to the next video, which is the project section. So this is your turn to get creative, and I'm really hoping that you enjoy this challenge 5. Project: Hey, guys, I just want to take a moment to thank you so much for watching my course this fall. So this section of the course is the project section, so scroll on down to the project section. We'll wait. Not yet. Let me explain it first. So I want you guys to get creative. Initially, I was going to ask you to take a long exposure photo writing your name in light. But instead, I want you to think of one word that really resonates with you something that is really meaningful to you. That is the reason you got into photography in the first place. It can be somebody's name if that's what you prefer. So I'm just gonna give you a little protect that I didn't mention in any of the other videos. Remember that when you paint with light, the words that you write are going to come out in reverse on the actual image, so you can either right your words in reverse or you can write them in the correct direction for you and then flip the image in post production so that the letters are facing the correct direction to go out there make sure that it's dark. Turn off those porch lights and let's get creative. So once again, guys, thank you so much for watching my class. Please follow my channel like subscribe. And don't forget to review my class. Thank you so much and I'll see you guys in the next one.