Firefighting/Fireground photography question

Hey all,

I have a couple questions.I work my full time job as a paramedic and recently just switched from dayshift to night shift.I've also been getting really involved in photography lately.I have a canon t1i with a couple different lenses.However in the city I work with we assist the fire department and stand-by at their incidents all the time.During dayshift I was taking some really cool pictures,but not at night I'm completly lost.I was just wondering if there is any members on here that are into fire photography and esp at night with any tips.At a fire last night I took about 700 pictures,about 15 of them actually came out how I wanted.At first I was shooting in full auto with a 220ex flash,but they were coming way over exposed and looked horrible then I was screwing around with the other settings.Just wondering if any settings in particular would be better than another.I'm just getting into this DSLR stuff and especially at night I have no expirience. Thanks

Some things to consider:

- Full auto can be a real problem because it doesn't have any way of understanding where you are, what you are shooting or how you want it to look. Try using P or Tv which will let you use exposure compensation to tell the camera what kind of exposure you want.
- If the flash shots are coming out too bright then take a look at flash exposure compensation or FEC. it works similar to EC but it controls the flash.
- You may need to get a lens with a wider aperture for night shots. The 50mm f/1.8 is very inexpensive if money is tight. The 50mm f/1.4 is more expensive but is higher quality. Not necessarily better image quality than the 1.8 but better build quality, better autofocus, etc.

Keep in mind, that at a fire scene, there are hundreds of things to reflect light in a negative way. You have the striping on the turnout gear, the striping on the apparatus, the water, etc. Try to position yourself as to not hit those surfaces dominant in your shot. Try to use the scene lights as your primary light source. I can't recall working a night fire scene where there wasn't a crap ton of scene lights used. Also, don't use direct/bare flash. Bounce your flash. That will disperse the light over a wider area. Hope this helps.

Try to learn to shoot manual. You'll have much better control over the camera.

I can offer a few things:

I shoot in P and adjust with FEC.

Remove any filters that you my have on the glass. It's been my experience that the flash bounces off the reflective striping (reflexite), hits the front lens element and bounces around like mad between the filter and the lens. I get green "ghost" stripes from that.

Fast glass is a must. As mentioned try to use as much ambient light as you can.

High ISO. Better to get a sharp shot and kill some noise in PP then to miss the shot.

Here is some of our work.

http://www.newjerseyfi​re.com/

Here are my thoughts...

There are times when its really dark. The on-scene lighting may be limited to close to the apparatus. However, the fire itself often provides some lighting. In these cases, don't be afraid of high ISO, wide apertures and show shutter speeds. Really concentrate on holding the camera still when the shutter speeds drop.

Here's a photo of a shed fire before any on-scene lighting was setup. The fire itself provided what lighting there is. This was ISO 1600, f/4 at 1/60.

If I were you I would shoot in P as Bucket stated earlier or go for Shutter priority which is what I use most times. I do 90% of my shooting at night and use 18-55 & 55-200 3.5-5 lens as my primary (for now 70-200 2,8 near future). It can be done. I do use a few 2.8 now and then as well as 1.4 50mm It just takes getting use to the fact things move quick and no two seconds are ever the same. #1 tip I can give you is get ot of Auto, it will fail you most times. #2 get IS on all your lens it will give you that extra stop or two that will help you out a ton at night.

spkerer (Steve) great work on your fire shots, was just browsing your site, nice work.....

KenVP wrote in post #9402832
spkerer (Steve) great work on your fire shots, was just browsing your site, nice work.....

Thanks, Ken!