Incense smoke - advise appreciated

hil26 · Incense smoke - advise appreciated

Trying something different - seen something in a recent magazine - so thought I'd give it a go.

basically, incense stick, black background (couldn't see what I was doing - smoke very faint against the background), one flash to the left - probably need some barn doors to help focus the flash.

Manually focused on the top of the stick, and then tried various shutter speeds at f16 (have no idea why I chose f16 - its supposed to be sharpest f stop on lens - so I am told)

This one, best of bunch at 15 secs exposure.

Into photoshop, inversed, small tweaks on levels and colour and this is the result - any input to improve will be gratefully receieved.

Venom

Nice shot, the only thing for me is the smoke going off the top of the picture, but this might be my personal taste.

hil26

thanks MIke, lots of patienec required for these

this one is a 10 sec exposure, and some playing around with colours in photoshop

Venom

Now for me this one is much better, not sure about the colour but the position of the smoke in the frame is great.

creators

I love to see some experimenting going on. There is always something wonderful about smoke shots, no matter how unpopular and even though these are incense, good stuff Dave, I like them both.

hil26

ahh, think I have just discovered where I am going wrong.

The images I have taken so far are just not sharp enough, and I think its to do woth not enough light (although using studio light) and a fast enough shutter speed - so off to the drawing board again tonight.

hil26

Think I am beginning to crack this now

ISO 100, 1/125s, f13

ISO 100, 1/125s, f20

I was playing with the f numbers to see the cause and effect, only reason they are different

flapjack · experimenting

I love the photo with the black background. Could see this as a very large blown-up photo in a very modern room Smile

Jan

Awesome work David... I love the smoke on the black background the best! Cool

creators

f numbers seem to be much more critical under studio conditions I am beginning to discover. I agree about the black background, very nice shot.

jonH

just don't get too crazy with narrow apertures - don't forget about diffraction at high values

Gilly

I love the black bachground one too - it gives a real sense of what I think you are trying to achieve.

The one immediately above it would (in my opinion) work really good with a black background too....... any chance of some colour swapping Dave (hint hint!!) Smile

hil26

Jon - thanks, experimenting and what I can glean form others who try this, seems to suggest that f12 - f16 is probably the optimum - will still experiment though - difficulty is that you can repeat what you just did, as the smoke goes all over the place.

Gilly - believe me the black background did not work on this shot, will post if you would like to see.

Whilst doing these have found a good way to inverse the image - it involves using curves and gives better results

Gilly

Simonzphotoz

hil26

thanks Simon

Simonzphotoz

Dave, personally I prefer the darker backgrounds, it brings out the colour and shape of the smoke, with the coloured smoke is that editing or the actual colour? Just a thought, but would it be possible to find a card background that contrasts with the smoke colour, like the white on black. I find with the other pictures that the smoke tends to blend a bit with the background and then looses definition. I didn't read the whole post so sorry if someone else said it first.

HTH

hil26

Thanks Simon

The colour in the smoke is actually brought out using the hue and saturation tools according to your particular taste.

What I found was that no two pictures were giving me the same colour replication - might be due to distance of smoke from lens and different dof's - smoke was moving back and forward all the time, even with very little movement in the room.

The images need to be taken against a black background as the smoke is almost invisible against a white. All info I can find say use a black background, but keep the flash light off it, use snoot or barn doors to direct the light onto the smoke - I actually used rolled up black card over the light, as I have neither of those pieces of kit.

The image is inverted in the image editing program - but you need to make sure that you have a totally black background - found using a "V" shape in curves did wonders for getting that bit right.

The reason I put the pinkish image up on white was that I did like the shape it produced, but on black its was awful. I have actually printed it off and mounted a small version of it (6x4), mount colour being similar shade of pink - and it works.

This site was most helpful

http://www.photocritic.org/2007/artsmoke-photographing-smoke/

Simonzphotoz

sounds like you did your research, I was just wondering that was all. great shots though...