{"id":4575,"date":"2015-02-10T16:30:36","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T00:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.digilentinc.com\/?p=4575"},"modified":"2025-06-02T03:37:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T10:37:37","slug":"light-painting-with-ws2812-leds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/light-painting-with-ws2812-leds\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create Light Paintings with WS2812 LEDs"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine came into town for Christmas and I wanted to do some sort of photography project with him. A few months ago, there were\u00a0some pictures floating around the internet from Stephen Orlando, who took LEDs and attached them to a kayak paddle and kayaked around a lake, and through rapids. You can see his whole gallery here at\u00a0Motion Exposure Galleries<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Light<\/a>
Light Painting by Stephen Orlando.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wanted to do something similar. The first night wasn’t very organized. We went into the woods with just the LED strip, the chipKIT board (the uC32), and a battery. We didn’t like the result we got with just carrying the strip, so we found a stick and wrapped the strip around it. We just used the rainbow example sketch from Adafruit’s NeoPixels.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This was the first good one we got on the first night and I think it’s the best.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Through<\/a>
Through the woods.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"At<\/a>
At the observatory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"More<\/a>
More at the observatory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"On<\/a>
On the field of the stadium.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The second night, we thought it would be a good idea to attach the LED strip to something more solid than a stick we found in the woods. I wasn’t as happy with this set, but we did get some awesome pictures. My favorite one from both nights was the one in the “Zen Staircase.”<\/p>\n

\"Around<\/a>
Around the pond.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"In<\/a>
In the “Zen Staircase”.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"On<\/a>
On the train bridge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Under<\/a>
Under the bridge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here\u00a0are\u00a0a few pictures of the setup we used. The LEDs on the stick are different than the ones we actually used, they are a higher density. I want to try it again. with the higher density ones to see what it would look like. Overall, I was happier with the ones from the first night. The patterns were less predictable and I really liked the way there were breaks in the lights from some of the LEDs facing away from the camera.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The stick.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The whole level.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What have you been able to do with your WS2812 LED strip?<\/p>\n

0<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine came into town for Christmas and I wanted to do some sort of photography project with him. A few months ago, there were some pictures floating around the internet from Stephen Orlando, who took LEDs and attached them to a kayak paddle and kayaked around a lake, and through rapids. I wanted to do something similar. The first night wasn’t very organized. We went into the woods with just the LED strip, the chipKIT board (the uC32), and a battery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_ppma_block_editor_authors":""},"categories":[4327],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[4456],"class_list":["post-4575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Create Light Paintings with WS2812 LEDs - Digilent Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/light-painting-with-ws2812-leds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Create Light Paintings with WS2812 LEDs - Digilent Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A friend of mine came into town for Christmas and I wanted to do some sort of photography project with him. 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