Photography (Light Painting) question
 

My buddy and I are trying to get better at automotive photography, we're really getting it down with the camera settings however a lot of the places we go to shoot have poor lighting. We're on a budget, and i'm trying to either buy or make a nice, relatively bright light at a low cost. My thought was getting LEDs and mounting them in a projector-type housing, wired to a 12v marine cell battery. Any thoughts? This pic I attached is an example of what we're running in to, notice how the front drivers side (mostly the wheel well area) has no light at all. Thanks in advance!

The sun is free. :D

Or check out B&H/Adorama for light set ups. Some of them aren't terribly expensive.

Thanks! And very true, sunlight is free, however you're able to get easier access to certain areas at say, 3 am haha. (The aprox. time when the pic I posted was taken, as during the day there's 100s of cars at that exact spot.)

what are u shooting with?

LEDs are still expensive. To get the same light output from LEDs as from conventional bulbs will cost you. I haven't actually looked at the LED light panels that are showing up so maybe it's more feasable now? Maybe start experimenting with remote flash setup? You'll be learning yet another thing, but a flash you can also use for other apps and/or mount on camera for normal use too. Night photography is going to be challenging because you also got the issues of white balance from all the different types of light sources!

Canon Rebel t1i

If you're going to be light painting, it's best to do it with a large surface area that projects light evenly, and ideally it'll be daylight white balanced as well. Most options are DIYish right now, unless you go for cinema LED sources, which are somewhat expensive to very expensive.

upgrade to t2i, althought there are t3/4i are already out, however, t2i still in a competitive level even it is a older model and it still perforce very well.

for light painting you really want a location that doesnt have a bunch of light pollution so you dont have nasty interfering light and you can use a longer shutter speed to paint everything you want.
i use either a led hand light thats supposed to be just a flash light, and have used and am going to purchase a handheld continuous lighting led light that uses AA batteries.
we used this one :
http://image.dhgate.com/albu_2545139...-led-light.jpg

for this photo :
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8237/8...41254364_c.jpg

cheap and efficient! just look up continuous led lighting on B&H.