Light Painting with Electroluminescent Wire
- Stephen Knight
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
Electroluminescent (EL) Wire is one of the most budget friendly light painting tools. It was very popular with light painters in the 2010s, but this old skool light painting tool has become less popular in the 2020s. I'm on a mission to make EL Wire more popular again, as it is a very flexible light painting tool.
What is EL Wire?
EL Wire is a thin copper wire, surrounded by phosphor, and a protective plastic surround. When an AC electrical current is applied to the wire, the phosphor emits light via electroluminescence. These wires are usually available in 1,2,3,5, and sometimes even 10m lengths. They usually come with a practical 2xAA battery pack, though USB, and DC12V options are also sometimes offered by resellers. Colours include White, Ice Blue, Blue, Green, Fluorescent Green, Red, Orange, Yellow. Pink, Purple.
I usually buy these from Aliexpress (my most recent orders from JinTime Factory Store), and a 1m wire with 2xAA battery pack should cost around AU$5. EL wire can usually be purchased locally in Western countries, but with a markup. As these are cheap, mass produced items, the quality isn't always great. My recently purchased Pink EL wire failed after one use, and an older Ice Blue EL wire had noticeable phosphor deterioration after a year of use.
What can EL Wire be used for?
EL Wire has lots of uses for light painting. I usually use 1m (or sometimes 2m) lengths, to create smoke or mist like light trails, by wiggling the wire around. However, there are plenty of other techniques that they can be used for including mounting the wire to a stick for more structured light trails, or to create rotating patterns. Long lengths of EL wire can be used to wrap around objects, or to create a long line of light through an image.
Some considerations when using EL wire, is that they are not very bright. A typical camera exposure of f/5.6, ISO400-800 (depending the colour) is optimal. This means that EL wire needs to be used well away from ambient lights such as street lights. The battery pack has a red light that needs to be covered with some black tape or a finger. The user interface cycles through Off>Continuous On>Fast Flash>Slow Flash>Off. This means that you have to quickly triple click to get from Continuous On to Off. I've yet to find a battery pack with just Off and Continuous On.
Examples
I hope that you've found this article useful. There are plenty more photography tutorials on this website, and mini e-books available in my online shop (link below).
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