In a recent post I wrote of my excitement about my latest roll of film and the light-painting photos it contained. I'd purchased myself a multi-coloured torch that looks a little like a miniature lightsaber. With 3 different colours and 7 different settings I had a great beginners tool and I couldn't wait to get started.

I knew I was going to make some mistakes along the way, as I had no idea about which aperture setting to use and how long to expose my shots for. Nevertheless, I had a vision in my mind and had been taking notes from other lightpainters on steemit. So with my camera set up in the back garden, facing a group of plant pots, I set my aperture to F11 and dared myself to press the trigger...."CLICK".....

After my first attempt, I then set my aperture to F8 and preformed a similar garden dance. After this I adjusted down as low as I dared, to F5.6, remembering that at this setting my time in front of the lens was limited...or maybe not, I had no way of knowing until my film had been developed...

After my session in the garden I wanted to venture further a field and somewhere where there were no overlooking houses giving out light from their bedroom windows. After walking into town, I realised there was a residential home for the elderly that had a large public garden which was unlit and far enough away from the street lamps... This was perfect and after putting on my darkest clothes (which, when I think about it, made me look like a burglar), I gathered up my gear and set up, ready to do the dance one last time.

After taking 4 or 5 pictures, and receiving some very strange looks from passers by, my role of film was finished and all that was left to do was to take it to the shop and wait for it to be developed.

Before I speak about the photos themselves I have to mention a very important lesson learned from this experience...

I had used a roll of Ektar100 film in my Olympus OM30 camera and after speaking to a very informed individual, who happened to be in the photo-shop at the time, I have since learned that this particular film uses a silver based emulsion that doesn't work well with commercial developing machines. In daylight photos there doesn't seem to be a problem but with my night-shots it is the complete opposite and it was depressing to see all my hard work spoiled by this unknown problem. Needless to say, I won't be using Ektar100 for anymore of my lightpainting photo-sessions and will instead begin using the brands sold in-store. I've used these basic Kodac films before and even though they are nothing special I know that they won't be spoiled during processing.

One more thing I learned from this experience was that high F-stops, like F22 and F16, seemed to block out too much light, while F-stops going as low as F-5.6 still gave good results and left plenty of time to play around in-front of the lens.

So for what it worth I will now show you the fruits of my labours. It's a real shame to have to post photos that have these kind of defects, but I hope you can all see past the fog. I've taken some positives from this and learning how my "lightsaber" comes through the camera is something that will really help in future. The ribbon effect it gives out is something I plan to manipulate in my next outing and knowing that it gives out enough light to draw pictures in the air is a real bonus too.

All of the photos below have been produced during a single long-exposure and other than cropping I have not edited them after the event.

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