Long Exposure Photography Using Glow Sticks

[srhkng]

I'm almost done my second semester of Photography in Graphic Design, so I'm not completely new at photography, but I'm not exactly more then new either. On flickr I saw this picture:

I then decided to try and recreate it, but only to achieve this:

My aperture was about 7, and my shutter speed varied throughout the shoot from 10 seconds to 30 seconds. I even tryd it on BULB.
Can anyone help me out on how to sharpen up the trail of light the glowsticks leave, and make the colours more vibrant?

 

[NayLoMo6C]

Your focus is off, thats way

 

[srhkng]

right, well how do I keep the glowsticks in focus the entire time when im moving them around?

 

[TheBiles]

right, well how do I keep the glowsticks in focus the entire time when im moving them around?

Keep them in the plane of focus. Just put your camera in manual focus and focus on the appropriate distance that you will be standing with the glow sticks.

 

[RauschPhotography]

OP: TPF doesn't allow us to post images that aren't our own--linking to them is fine, but don't post the image itself unless it's yours.

 

[Geaux]

Go to MF and set it to infinite or f/8-f/11. That should give you better DOF than the f/5.6 that you shot it at.

 

[analog.universe]

Manual focus for sure. As for aperture, I would try a few different settings once you've got your focus nailed. The glowsticks are not that bright, but are also quite deep in the field... so you'll have to decide where to trade off depth for brightness. You can also boost your ISO up, I noticed you're shooting at 100. Not sure at what limit your camera gets noisy, but I'm sure you've got some room to boost. If you look at the original image, parts of the trail are actually overexposed. To get the colors really vibrant, shoot in RAW and push the saturation in post, you'll have plenty of flexibility here if you've got sufficient exposure.

as a side note, it looks like the glowsticks in the original are swung on strings, not handheld...

another thought: use a tripod if you're not already, the original was certainly captured with one.

 

[SilverEF88]

Just Keep trying and it was definitely your focus being off. I just made this one the other night.