Inspired by Stan (plus I've always loved the back cover image of Dire Straits's Love Over Gold album) I thought I'd have a go at some smoke art. Having read Stan's advice plus a couple of online tutorials, it does indeed turn out to be pretty simple to get an OK image. In fact, I was quite happy until I went back and re-looked at his. Clearly I need to spend a lot more time making the images more defined, and cleaner. But anyway, thought I'd share.
The set up was in my windowless shed (actually a brick air-raid shelter) with a sheet of black paper hanging behind, incense stick jammed in floorboard, flash gun as slave perched on lawnmower and flagged from camera and backdrop, camera on tripod at lowest height, manual focus, all taken with remote control.
Very first shot turned out to be one of my favourites; don't know why, it is just kind of pleasing:
Smoke 1 by AlexR!, on Flickr
EOS 7D, EF-S 17-85
1/200sec, f/20, 73mm, ISO 200, 0EV
After a while, I tried to experiment a little:
Smoke 2 by AlexR!, on Flickr
1/200sec, f/22, 61mm, ISO 200, 0EV
And the only one that contained an interesting shape (I see a dancer):
Smoke 3 by AlexR!, on Flickr
1/200sec, f/22, 44mm, ISO 200, 0EV
I had a complete block on how to just colour the smoke, so I'll be back to have a play another day. But I'll definitely have another go, it is kind of addictive, and you get decent results (I think) fairly quickly. Stan has no reason to worry about being usurped as the Master, though...
The set up was in my windowless shed (actually a brick air-raid shelter) with a sheet of black paper hanging behind, incense stick jammed in floorboard, flash gun as slave perched on lawnmower and flagged from camera and backdrop, camera on tripod at lowest height, manual focus, all taken with remote control.
Very first shot turned out to be one of my favourites; don't know why, it is just kind of pleasing:
Smoke 1 by AlexR!, on Flickr
EOS 7D, EF-S 17-85
1/200sec, f/20, 73mm, ISO 200, 0EV
After a while, I tried to experiment a little:
Smoke 2 by AlexR!, on Flickr
1/200sec, f/22, 61mm, ISO 200, 0EV
And the only one that contained an interesting shape (I see a dancer):
Smoke 3 by AlexR!, on Flickr
1/200sec, f/22, 44mm, ISO 200, 0EV
I had a complete block on how to just colour the smoke, so I'll be back to have a play another day. But I'll definitely have another go, it is kind of addictive, and you get decent results (I think) fairly quickly. Stan has no reason to worry about being usurped as the Master, though...
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