Patio Lights (Explored #204 14/11/2012)

For assignment: "Man Made Symmetry"

 

These were made by me on the back patio..

 

“Immature Photography” in comments has kindly pre-empted my posting of this with various links on Light Domes..

As the links show this was a closely guarded secret by the very clever inventor of this light painting technique but the internet doesn’t hold a secret for long.

 

I used an old bicycle wheel, fifteen 3volt LED’s, two 9volt batteries, a 12V switch, some wire and tape plus a length of threaded rod.

I fixed a length of threaded rod through the axle housing with a lock nut either side so that it protrudes on one side to a distance roughly equal to the wheel radius and about 100mm the other side.. this is where you mount the switch.

Wire the batteries in series i.e. Pos to Neg To Pos to Neg so the output is 18Volts then wire the 3volt LED’s into 3 separate groups of 5 and connect to the batteries via the switch.

Space the LED’s around the rim evenly and wire them in groups to the batteries via the on/off switch.

 

My Method..

 

Wear dark clothing, mark out on the ground where you want to centre the domes, set the camera for remote shutter and in bulb mode, set the focus manually, use a low ISO (200) and a smallish aperture..around f/14, place the wheel with the lights away from the camera, i.e. long axle pointing at camera, fire the shutter, switch the lights on and give the wheel one or two ground rotations then turn it off. Repeat procedure for as many light domes as you like then close the shutter.

 

 

Done