Light Graffitti with the kids

If you haven't used your Canon DSLR for 'light grafitti', this can be a lot of fun.

Here are some examples. I explain 'how' at the end of this post.

Canon 5D camera, Canon 50mm f1.4 lens, shooting mode of 'manual', ISO 200, shutter-speed of 15 seconds, aperture of f4, external flash 'on', white balance set to 'flash', picture-style set to 'standard', tripod.

Canon 5D camera, Canon 50mm f1.4 lens, shooting mode of 'manual', ISO 200, shutter-speed of 15 seconds, aperture of f4, external flash, white balance set to 'flash', picture-style set to 'standard', tripod.

Canon 5D camera, Canon 50mm f1.4 lens, shooting mode of 'manual', ISO 200, shutter-speed of 15 seconds, aperture of f4, external flash, white balance set to 'flash', picture-style set to 'standard', tripod. A dark background is desirable.

You're basically leaving the shutter open for a long time while you use a light source to 'paint' the graffitti. The flash illuminates the subject. A tripod keeps the camera steady while you're doing the light graffitti. I used 'manual' mode so I could select both the shutter-speed and aperture. I tried a couple combinations (of shutter-speed and aperture) until I got it 'just right'.

I used the screen of my blackberry smart phone to 'paint' the grafitti. A colored light source might work even better.