14 DAY TRIAL // Light painting is not a new photography concept, and many of us are familiar with some of the techniques used for this type of photography.
Tested for the first time in 1889 by Georges Demeny, this new technique has quickly become popular among photographers who since then tried to improve it using colored lights and complex patterns.
To create your own light painting photos, you can use any DSLR or point-and-shoot camera that has a long exposure mode available. The process is fairly simple and implies a long exposure (from a few seconds to a few hours) combined with the usage of an external light source to paint anything you can think of.
This technique has its limits though, and a lot of work is involved in order to create a complex light painting photo. The guys at Bigbanger Labs have decided to improve this popular technique by creating a light aluminum rod with 198 full color RGB LEDs called Pixelstick.
Pixelstick is able to read and render Photoshop created images, displaying them one line at a time. Furthermore, Pixelstick can help you implement your light painting projects to the world of timelapse photography by rendering a series of images over multiple exposures.
This awesome light stick can read images from any SD card and uses 8 AA batteries. A perpendicular handle is connected to the central bracket, which houses the two 3' / 1.83m sections allowing a more natural movement.
A small mounted handbox has controls for brightness, tint, firing speed, vertical flip and left/right direction, as well as allowing you to select which image to load.
The project has already gathered many backers and it's funded with 41 days to go. If you are interested in buying your own Pixelstick, head over to Kickstarter where for $300 / €222 / ₤188 you can get the following:
LED PCBs (198 LEDs total) Two 3' aluminum extrusion with connecting bracket & diffusion lens Handle with foam grip and rotating sleeve Controller box with connecting cables and clips Battery holder (AA Batteries not included) Carry bag
