Light Writing with Nikon D7000!!

Hubby and I discovered a new setting on his Nikon D7000 that allowed him to capture pictures of moving light source, such as fireworks!  Unfortunately, we didn't know about this during July 4th, so none of his pictures turned out well, but it's never too late to learn new tricks!!

What you need to capture these pictures:
13 seconds exposure, F stop of 16, ISO 100
Steady hands
A creative MODEL!! :)

LEVEL ONE: Writing letters that can be completed in a SINGLE STROKE

You can vaguely see me behind the letter. I was facing the camera and writing backwards, a mirrored image.  Some letters were tougher than others, so to start, I picked a letter that could be completed in a single stroke.

B and D were both pretty easy.  You can see on the left that I just looped it back.

Level TWO: Writing Words with More than One Stroke.

1) We extended the shutter speed
2) After I wrote my H, I turned off the light, moved over in preparation to write the I and then turned the light back on.  Basically, any time I wanted some "space," I turned the light off.

I did the same technique here...

ADVANCED LEVEL: Writing in CHINESE!
Now, I didn't know how to write these backwards.  So, we discovered that I could actually write these the normal way, but I would have to face AWAY from the camera.  I was writing them a little bit above my head and to my right.  The flashlight had to be shining AT the camera to achieve maximum effect.

This is the Chinese character "zi," which  means son.

 This is the Chinese character "xin," which could either mean letter or faith

This one was probably the hardest to write, because of the different stroke combination involved.  There is a box on top, which I had to fill in with lines.  On the bottom, the "heart" character is curvy.  I couldn't tell which one stroke ended and the other one started.  It was all just a guessing game.  We caught most of it though!  

It's the Chinese character "en," which means grace.

Now have fun with your light writing!  I don't think you necessarily have to have a fancy camera for it.  I'm pretty sure regular digital cameras can do it too.  If you take any, please do comment below or send them to me "bumbeepicks@gmail.com".  I'd love to see them!