Smoke - trial run

[Athena]

I've been wanting to do this for awhile. :) I had a play with shooting smoke the other night, to check out how manageable it is. I have a few ideas I want to try with it, but for now here are the preliminaries. ;)

1.
http://lifeprintsphotography.com/Macro/Other/Smoke_5821.jpg

2.
http://lifeprintsphotography.com/Macro/Other/Smoke_5828.jpg

3.
http://lifeprintsphotography.com/Macro/Other/Smoke_5842.jpg

4.
http://lifeprintsphotography.com/Macro/Other/smoke_5667.jpg

The downsizing hurt them quite a bit - they are much smoother at full res.
Not sure which I like best, but am leaning towards #2. :)

[puddlepirate44]

I've been waiting a long time for these. It's been worth the wait. Nicely done.

[Woolburr]

#2 is pretty neat...but I kind of like the first one as well. Smoke is one of those fun little things to play with. What did you use for a source? I have had the best luck with stick incense.

[T.D.]

Very cool Athena!

I would love to try some shots like this sometime.

[thomascanty]

Very nice. I couldn't pick a favorite, as they're all uniquely interesting. I really like the different colors.

[Beau Hudspeth]

Very nice Athena, good stuff!

[BearLeeAlive]

Those look great Athena. Love the idea.

[Becky N]

Like Lonnie, I can't pick a favorite, they are all very interesting in their own right.

[dilorenzo1954]

Jeesh...Finally! Seriously #2 is my fave (even before I read even your comments):) :) :)

Ed

[Eyelikedurt]

Excellent stuff! Id love to have a go, but really haven't a clue where to start. Any chance of getting a run down of what you did? ;)

[bbc14f]

Great job they are all good.

[puddlepirate44]

OK, I've had a chance to really look these over. I like 1 and 3. No particular reason, really, I just like how the smoke curls in those shots. The colors in 1 are fantastic. I like all of them very much, and if it weren't for the new "I Tired Of You Trying To Burn Down The House Just To Get A Shot" rule imposed by my wife, I'd be tempted to try this, too.

[misspix]

Wow! I like them all, but leaning towards #2 (although, purple is my favorite color, so I could be a bit biased there)

[Scarlett Nic]

Way cool Athena:D Arent smoke images fun to experiment with? I think i'm hooked.. wont stop till i think i have it mastered.

Really like the first image.. but then again i like them all!

Nic

[NeverFollow]

I really like #2 and #3

[chemicalbro]

oooooh really cool.. the colours and shapes in the 1st one really catch my eye

[Gr8outdrsmn]

Love them all, great shots!

[kckong]

Nice shots! If you had shown #2 by itself & didn't say it was smoke, I might even think it's some gossamer material floating down.

[Athena]

Thanks for all the wonderful comments. I feel I should say that this is by no means a novel idea of mine. I've seen other people do it and wanted to give it a go. Quite some time ago Chris1le posted some really cool ones (which you can see HERE (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=243530)) and was kind enough to give me some pointers on how to set it up.

I varied the technique a bit, but basically my setup was a stick of lit incense on my dining room table for the smoke, a 3' softbox (you could use an off camera flash) on the left hand side, and a piece of black posterboard leaned against a chair across the table so my cream colored curtains wouldn't get to ruin the shots by reflecting any stray light back into the lens.

While I was composing the shots, I used the modeling lamp from my softbox ONLY - no other lights on in the room. The only part that's tricky is the focus, which I did manually, because the smoke is constantly in motion. To get a crisp shot, you need to hit it with enough light from your strobe/flash to freeze the motion. But you want to be sure that same light doesn't expose the surroundings to keep the background black.

That's pretty much it - after that, it's all a matter of photoshop. ;)

[scott searles]

thanks for passing along the pointers... a perfect example of a forum helping to advance the skils of the rest of the group. We'll all be smokin' beforethis is over.

[KathlinTheElf]

Nice job. I really like #1.

[Pete]

I love all of them Athena. They'd look very nice as a series of 6x4's on a wall...

[Athena]

You're right Scott - this is a great forum. :)

Thanks Kathlin and Pete.
Ya know Pete - I rarely ever print any of my stuff for myself - just the kids pictures. ;)