Smoke Photography

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 49549
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Deleted member 49549

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Hi all,

i've spent a little time doing some smoke photography, and wrote a little guide. Suitable for beginners, as it was drafted by one...

Taking the pictures
  • use a joss stick, plenty of smoke and lasts a while. when the room gets smoky, open the widows to get rid of the smoke, this will increase contrast in your pictures
  • i used a telephoto, it minimises the size of the backdrop needed.
  • make sure the backdrop is black
  • use a flash camera left or right, and use a snoot to ensure the flash doesn't fall on the lens / backdrop. i used 2 cereal boxes to block the light
  • use a desktop lamp to light the smoke for autofocus
  • recommended camera settings to start - iso 100/200, 1/250s shutter speed, f8.
  • i dont use a tripod, the patterns in the smoke will move and a tripod will hinder you
  • alternatively, if you do use a tripod, just have the prefocus on the tip of the joss stick, switch to manual focus and crop the pictures later.
Post Processing
  • use levels to make the background completely black.
  • use the healing brush tool t remove any stubborn non-black areas in the background
  • use a black brush to trim any unwanted areas of smoke
  • load a channel as selection (try all of them to see what's best)
  • create new layer from selection, fill white

then you can paint colours or use a colour grad-filter.

Links that i found useful:-

http://sensitivelight.com/photographingsmoke/
http://vimeo.com/4698985

Samples

405__950x_smoke-2011-11-05.jpg


242__950x_smoke-2-1.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Good straight forward guide,and the resulting pictures make me want to try this,many thanks :)
 
I like the second one, looks like a flame. I take it you need a remote/radio flash trigger?
 
Dblock said:
I like the second one, looks like a flame. I take it you need a remote/radio flash trigger?
Click to expand...

Hi dblock,
I used an sb600 which you can use wireless. If your camera / flash can't trigger remotely, look for rf602 triggers on Ebay / Amazon. Just got a set myself for Christmas.
 
Rapscallion said:
Hi dblock,
I used an sb600 which you can use wireless. If your camera / flash can't trigger remotely, look for rf602 triggers on Ebay / Amazon. Just got a set myself for Christmas.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, they dont seem to expensive either. :thumbs:
 
Thank you very much Phil, they are some great links. Lots of reading for me ::-):
 
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