Smoke

[SamuraiJack]

Had to try my hand at smoke photography. Comments welcome!

Other than color, they are not edited in photoshop. Tell me what you see in them!

1.
http://www.pbase.com/wesstewart/image/75363691.jpg

2.
http://www.pbase.com/wesstewart/image/75365760.jpg

3.
http://www.pbase.com/wesstewart/image/75366630.jpg

4.
http://www.pbase.com/wesstewart/image/75364510.jpg

[TheGlyph]

Very cool stuff. I love #2!

Would you mind sharing what you did to get these?

[SmuckerS2]

#3 is sexy. nice photos

[PhatPhoto]

yeah those are awesome. I agree that #3 is really cool, color and length made it work for me.
Great work !!

[ieatstars]

Cool! :) I love 2 & 4

[SamuraiJack]

Thanks for the comments.

It took quite a bit of experimentation, but this is how I captured these images.

The background was black paper (the kind you would get on a roll at a school for bulletin boards). My camera was on a tripod with an incense stick between the camera and background. To get the background absolute black and not show the wrinkled paper, I put a 580ex flash to the left hand side at a 90 degree angle. I also put a piece of cardboard behind the flash so it would only light up the smoke and not the paper background.

A very small aperture also helps to not expose the background. I experimented some, but ended up using f/22 and a shutter speed of around 1/100.

Feel free to ask if that wasn't very clear. It is hard to describe the whole setup just in words. I'll try to elaborate if anyone has any questions.

[jbone]

what exactly do you mean when you say you put a piece of cardboard behind the flash?? Maybe im just not visualizing this correctly. Awesome pics btw!!

[Bill Pham]

really nice love them all. gonna have to try that also. thanks for the tips also.

Bill

[Kraig C]

what exactly do you mean when you say you put a piece of cardboard behind the flash?? Maybe im just not visualizing this correctly. Awesome pics btw!!
probly means that the smoke is backlit/side lit and the flash is vinetted to mask the flash from illuminating the background, like when you pull your cap down to block the sun from shining in your eyes.

[SamuraiJack]

Kraig is correct. The cardboard was used to just block any light from spilling over onto thebackground. You don't want any of the background exposed. The flash should be lighting up the smoke only.

I have a lot of other smoke photos on my pbase site by the way. Check it out if you want.

[roetevs]

Wow. those are amazing. #2 and 4

-Roel