ESSENTIAL KIT

CREATIVE CAMERA from £300/$350

Even basic interchangable-lens cameras are great for light painting, as they have full manual controls, with budget options including the Canon EOS 2000D and Nikon’s D3500. It could also be worth considering an Olympus OM-D or PEN mirrorless camera, which have a Live Composite feature that lets you see your light painting being built up in real time.

BUDGET FLASHGUN

From £120/$120

A flashgun is important for all sorts of photographic scenarios, and should definitely be something to add to your kit bag. They’re great for illuminating large swathes of your landscape scenes at night. We like to set our flash to Manual mode with a low power value, then use the Test button to manually fire it off-camera and add a few blips of flash around the scene.

WIDE-ANGLE LENS from £300/$400

While you can take painting-withlight shots with any lens (even a kit lens will work well), you’ll often be shooting landscape scenes, so a wide-angle optic would be a good choice. A lens like the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 offers a wide field of view as well as a wide aperture of f/2.8, which helps suck in loads of light when you shoot at night. Available for a range of mounts, it doubles up as a great lens for astrophotography, too!

STURDY TRIPOD

From £110/$110

A tripod is an absolute must for painting-with-light photography. By its very nature, you’re going to need to shoot an exposure several seconds, or even minutes, long to give yourself enough time to go around the scene and paint in your light. While entry-level tripods start at around £30/$30, it pays dividends to spend a bit more on a professional-spec model.