laserpointer 4961

laserpointer 4961
Originally uploaded by Brian Kuhl

It’s funny what you can accomplish with a small piece of technology. My father got me a laser pointer and I’ve been playing around with it. It helps that I started playing with the bulb setting on my camera. For those that don’t know, the bulb allows you to hold the button down to keep the shutter open for as long as you like. This can be used for several purposes, including showing the path of stars.

This picture was taken by pointing both the camera and the laser at the vertex of my room and moving the laser in a very tight circle around said vertex. For a picture like this, it helps to have the lights out and to take the picture at night. Otherwise, you get a very bright picture.

Had I been looking to show you the color of the wall, I could have used the flash to capture the wall. Since the flash fires for an instant, the room returns to dark and doesn’t add any information or value to the pixels. It’s only if I use the laser pointer that anything changes.

I’ve been playing around with the laser pointer, pointing it at different things. In an adjacent picture, you can see what happens when I make the circle a little bigger. Since I’m not yet capable of creating a perfect circle, you can see distinct lines. (It’s much easier to keep the laser in a more confined space for some reason.) You also get a clearer definition of the vertex.

I may post some of them later. (Note that the number at the end of each title is usually the number that the D50 assigns to the picture. Thus, a lower number indicates something that I took earlier.)