Well last night the weather outside was less than delightful and I had no wish to get drenched in the rain. So cue me sat at my desk in the dark doing unspeakable things with circuit boards!
I should explain: I have a collection of vintage circuit boards for the purposes of lightpainting. I photograph these boards in various ways and this post is mainly about zoom pulling, a technique where the lens' focal length is changed during a long exposure. Zoom pulling is also a great pastime when you need a photography 'fix' and the weather outside is inclement!
Circuit 1
This is the effect I was going for this evening. This is a combination of backlight using a continuous LED panel and a front light which illuminates the board during the long exposure. This was a lens pull where I was zooming out not in.
Circuit 2
I started the evening sat my desk with a Sony 90mm f2.8 macro lens thinking I was in a macro mood. Sometimes even if you have a set goal, it's good not ignore the impulse when you get a good idea and I switched to a zoom lens. This is the macro shot:
Circuit 3
To demonstrate the technique, this is a zoom pull out where I only used a blue LED panel.
Circuit 4
This is pretty much the same shot as above except this one has an extra red light at the front.
Circuit 5
This is another vintage circuit board with the almost iconic lettering, "Lasermax Controller" etched on to the board. I've had this board for a couple of years now and I believed it was a board from a 1990's arcade gaming machine but recently I made the mistake of googling the name. It turns out this is a memory module from a CNC machine. Not quite as glamorous!
Circuit 6
If you zoom more quickly, the zoom effect becomes a little more ethereal or ghostly. I also like how the chip in the middle becomes more three dimensional.
Circuit 7
This is probably the favourite from the session. Here I paused during the long exposure at the beginning before zooming to partly expose the board.
Circuit 8
Another variation with zoom pulling during a long exposure is to start zooming before the shutter fires so there are no static parts in the image. The trick here is to be still pulling as the exposure ends for a more abstract effect.
This one also shows the effects of changing the brightness of the lights.
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex, landscape and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; the social side of photography is always good!
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