A hot topic..

I was just experimenting with photographing flames - I thought some nice effects might be achievable, but all the photos seemed dull and not very interesting, and the flames came out strange colours - even when changing the white balance. Whats the best way to take a photo of flames that has impact?

Mr. Ist said, " Whats the best way to take a photo of flames that has impact? "

Get a Viking in the picture !




Sorry about that, just a wee joke.

I was lucky enough to be in Shetland this week for work and managed to take in the Up-Helly-Aa fire festival. I initially tried using the flash, with a slow shutter speed, hoping to freeze the 'vikings' and capture the flames of the torches, but I had problems because there was so much smoke about, that the flash was reflected off the smoke and made things look very murky. I ended up using a 50mm 1:1.4 lens, settting between f1.4- f2.8 @ ISO3200, with no flash. The resulting pictures are quite 'grainy' and exposed for the faces, so the flames are over exposed. I'll put a few more on my web page over the weekend and post a link when they are up.

This is a picture I took at last years Up-Helly-Aa festival, using flash to freeze the people, but with a slow shutter speed to get the flames from the torches. This seems to show the flames a bit better.



[/quote]

A mixture of lighter fluid and rubber cement burns nicely.
you want something that doesn't burn too hot.
the hotter the flame gets the more it changes from red/oranges and yellows to blues and whites. alcohol tends to burn more towards the blues.
As for exposure, try subdued light with longer exposures. take a spotmeter reading just off side of the flames and bracket from there.

Well my *flame* shot is not really the usual thing....




ISO 400, F3.5 1/10th sec.

As the car was producing intermittent flames I had pre-focused, then used manual to work from - the light was changing way too quickly for the camera to keep up, by the time it had metered and taken the shot the light had changed. So I used manual, went as slow as I felt I could hand hold, then played with the aperture to get the effect i wanted.

i was exposing to try and get the best balance between the flame and still showing the car a bit. White Balance was set for Tungsten to try and stop it being too yellow.

Ultimately it's not a great shot of flames, but it captured the effect well enough.


i think that flames are similar to moving water - you can freeze them for a sharp image with spray etc, or slow it down to get some blur and show the fluid movement.

[/quote]looks like the guy in blue's beard is on fire!

thanks for the ideas everyone - For the most part i think its trial and error, just to see what you get.
I like the viking pictures, can the k10d's inbuilt flash do 'rear curtain sync'? if thats what its called - to make the flames go behind the viking? my dl2 certainly can't, but for any camera I think it would only be a matter of a firmware change... (or buying an af360 )

Yes the K10D will do Trailing Curtain Sync see Page 72 of the manual for details of which modesit works in.

It the double right arrow and a flash sign with slow above it.

Thats good to know - although I wish I had a K10D to try it on...

Cheaper option is to buy the AF360 then if you decide to go to a K10D it will still work. The new firmware update will also allow the K10D pop up flash to act as master and the AF360 as slave.

The AF360 will also give leading curtain sync as well as trailing

I've tried it out and works well.

AAAAAGK!!!!
Gnomes!
I knew they would rise up one day!

It depends on what kind of flame you wanna see. You can fix the flame using short exposure or you can let it burn using long one. But there is a tricky thing - it could be impossible to use long exposure because of the source of fire is moving (like a person with torch) or short exposure because you wanna shot something besides the fire and it's too dark. BTW Shake Reduction of k10d is very useful in last case.