MWojton Loc: Yardley, PA

Hi gang,

Any tips on shooting a laser light show, specifically the one at Stone Mountain in Georgia. Ap size? Fast shutter, long shutter, try both?
I will be heading there in a few weeks.

Thanks a bunch.

MW

tkolstee

Laser light shows work by tracing one or more dots across the screen and drawing out the image several times per second. Persistence of vision provides the illusion of a complete image.

According to wikipedia, human persistence of vision is about 1/25 of a second, so you might start your shutter speeds there. You might want to go down just a bit from there to make sure you're getting everything.

It'll be way too easy to fool the light meter, so I would suggest shooting manual. Before the show begins, set your aperture based upon how you want the backdrop to appear - do you want to see the background or keep it dark and only see the projected images?

Will you be hand holding or shooting with a tripod? At these low shutter speeds, you may want to either use a tripod or beanbags to steady the camera.

Autofocus may be somewhat of an issue. If you'll be shooting from a stationary position, manually set your focus (or autofocus once and quickly switch to manual while it's set properly). You'll be able to shoot faster and more reliably this way no matter how dark.

From those basic settings let the LCD be your guide. You should be able to tell from there if the images you're getting are coming out okay. I'm not sure what your level of experience is, but some people are intimidated by manual mode. In this case it really is the best thing. You can nail your settings one time and leave them there for the rest of the show.