AFTER-DARK PHOTOGRAPHY
Discover the affordable accessories you need to make painting with light easier
Painting with light can be one of the more specialist fields of photography, so there’s lots P of niche equipment available to solve a particular problem, some of which can be rather pricey. The good news is that the essential kit you’ll need to get started with painting with light is all fairly basic stuff that you probably have to hand already – such as an interchangable lens camera, a wide-angle lens, basic flashgun and a few different torches, string lights and coloured gels.
Once you’ve got the hang of light painting, you can then look to upgrade your kit, slowly building it up over time when it’s convenient for you. This spreads the cost and helps you work out from experience which upgrade items will most benefit your painting-with-light photography.
STURDY TRIPOD FROM £110/$110
A tripod is an absolute must for paintingwith-light photography. By its very nature, you’re going to need to shoot an exposure several seconds, or even minutes, long to give yourself enough time to go around the scene and paint in your light. While entrylevel tripods start at around £30/$30, it pays dividends to spend a bit more on a professional-spec model.
CREATIVE CAMERA FROM £300/$350
Even basic interchangable-lens cameras are great for light painting, as they have full manual controls. Budget options include the Canon EOS 2000D and Nikon’s D3500, which cost around £320. It could also be worth considering an Olympus OM-D or PEN mirrorless camera, which has a Live Composite feature that helps you see your light painting being built up in real time.
BUDGET FLASHGUN FROM £120/$120
A flashgun is important for all sorts of photographic scenarios, and should definitely be something to add to your kit bag. They’re great for illuminating large swathes of your landscape scenes at night. We like to set our flash to Manual mode with a low power value, then use the Test button to manually fire it off-camera and add a few blips of flash around the scene.
WIDE-ANGLE LENS FROM £300/$400
While you can take painting-with-light shots with any lens (even a kit lens will work well), you’ll often be shooting landscape scenes, so a wide-angle optic would be a good choice. A lens like the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 offers a wide field of view as well as a wide aperture o
