Light Painting – Still Shots And Animations

[Kim Pimmel’s] been doing some really interesting light painting with an Arduino. In the past we’ve seen several light painting projects which use long exposures to capture moving LEDs, or moving LCD displays. But [Kim’s] stepping it up a notch, using cold cathode flourescent lamps, electroluminescent (EL) wire, and lasers. The vibrant colors put out by these sources make for some great photos, but that’s not all she’s got up her sleeve. After accumulating a ton of still photographs from various shoots she decided to edit them together into stopped motion videos.

After the break you can see that one method she used to make these images was to spin the light sources on a standard audio turntable. An Arduino is controlled through processing via Bluetooth in order to move the stepper motor-mounted lights while the record player spins. Add some futuristic music thanks to Daft Punk (which is exactly what she did) and you’re in business.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/14980662 w=470]

[Thanks @littlebirdceo via Arduino Blog]

12 thoughts on “Light Painting – Still Shots And Animations

  1. Er, uh, Kim does not look like a “she”.

    This is a great idea! Does anyone have ideas as to the least expensive digital camera which gives you a “time exposure” function?

  2. @ Bob,

    Not much, you are looking for a camera with a so called ‘Bulb’ function, which lets you open the ‘shutter’ for as long as you want.
    Even though most standard digital camera’s can be set up to a exposure time of about 30s, which is more then enough for this kind of stuff,.

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