light painting shadows ... help

D

djinn

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A friend of mine went out last night doing startrails , and he has posted this :

"I was up Chesterton Windmill last night trying to take star trials for the first time.

I had my camera set up on the windmill and sky, at the start of the long exposure I was lighting up the windmill to make it stand out in the photos more with a speedlight. I was positioned with my back to the camera to hid the speedlight from the camera and then was lighting up the windmill.

On a lot of the photos my shadow is on the windmill, well this is impossible as I was behind the speedlight??

Any thoughts why this has happened? "

I asked him about the Moon but there was no Moon last night.

any ideas ?
 
+1

You not only have to keep the light source in front of you to stop projecting your shadow onto the wall, you also have to bear in mind that your body will block the light bouncing back from the wall reaching the camera. You need to light at an angle (which could be up or down as well as left or right depending on the location) to avoid this.
 
djinn said:
I asked this but he says they are defiantly shadows not silhouettes
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Without a sample it's impossible for us to be sure. Has your friend got them up on Flickr, Facebook or another forum?

I still say silhouette, it will look like a shadow as it will be more or less transparent depending on the exact shot and where he was standing, but there will be differences in the size and position of a silhouette compared with a projected shadow.
 
Alastair said:
Without a sample it's impossible for us to be sure. Has your friend got them up on Flickr, Facebook or another forum?

I still say silhouette, it will look like a shadow as it will be more or less transparent depending on the exact shot and where he was standing, but there will be differences in the size and position of a silhouette compared with a projected shadow.
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I`ve asked him to put one on Flickr, when he does I post a link
 
the only way his shadow would appear on the windmill would be if there was a light source behind him, with him between it and the windmill and he stood in the same spot.

The long exposure would pick up his shadow then.

He needs to keep moving at all times and keep his flash pointing away from the camera.
 
I'm sure that's his silhouette.. I can see three of them at least.
 
Silhouette definitely. Caused by the fact that he's lighting a bright area in front of himself - effectively backlighting himself.
 
CT said:
Silhouette definitely. Caused by the fact that he's lighting a bright area in front of himself - effectively backlighting himself.
Click to expand...

Yes, and the reason they look like shadows is because as he's moving about the camera is picking up detail that is on the building and over lapping the info.
 
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