Light Painting with a Giant 2-Foot Ball of Steel Wool

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Steel wool is often done by lighting a small ball of steel wool on fire and then swinging it around in a long exposure photo while it burns. But what happens when you take it to the extreme? The folks over at Joby recently decided to see what you get when you burn a giant 2-foot ball of burning steel wool.

“One things for sure, it was definitely a bit unwieldy,” the team says. Here’s what swinging the giant ball looks like:

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Here’s the long-exposure light-painting photo that resulted. It was shot using a Canon 5D Mark III with a 16-35mm and a 20 second exposure:

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The experiment was part of a new series of videos called JOBY Labs, which will explore different photography and video trends. Here’s the episode (#1) on light painting photography (they use bigger and bigger steel wool balls until the 2 foot ball at the end):

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