smoke shapes

Anyone wants a circle puff?
By the way, this is not cigarette smoke, its incense smoke. And before anyone comes with jokes and tries to take the mickey out of me.... Nope, I did not puff the incense smoke and puff the circle . Used different ways to shape the circle.

Dont want to bore you with details but if anyone wants to have a go just ask and then I will bluber. I know this is not everyone's cup of tea, .

Or if someone prefers a roll instead of circle

I admire your experimentation with this sort of thing.

How do you light these? When I tried some smoke shots I used a flash but I'm guessing you don't?

Mike

Mike, you got to provide light from the sides. Either flash from the side and reflector on the opposite side so you confine the light to a very narrow area. Thats how I did my first few ones and they didnt come out bad in fact. If you check some of my other smoke images in the flickr account you will even notice which ones have light only from one side and just reflector from the opposite side.
Last few ones I have managed to get hold of a second flash quite cheap and thanks to Mattmatic's and other member's help (check one of the threads I started where I needed help with flash lighting) I now use two flashgus. They work superbly and now I am starting to put some more ideas into place, like shaping them up.
Got a few more to process, they came out pretty nice, just need a bit tidying up in PP

I used the arrangement you described of flash and reflector but found that the real issue was avoiding illuminating the background as well as the smoke which you have managed very well. Personally I went for a bit more light in there to get the smoke a bit brighter.

Thanks for the info.

Mike

Mike, you need to use a black background. I just use the back of an office leather chair I have, turn it around and the high back just covers enough. I keep at about 50 cm from the smoke and it should be ok. You can use also any black cloth or something that doesn't have a reflective material. Also bring the flash very close to the smoke. I think that must be one of the reasons why your background is getting light. I keep my flash at less than a foot distance from the smoke. You need to concentrate that light straight into the subject and avoid it getting into the background, which was your first problem before when using built in flash, remember?

And also put the reflector very very close to the smoke, about a foot or so away. YSo you have a nice concentrated light.

And what settings are you using?

Amin

Amin

I used some large black board but as I was shooting something along with the smoke I had to have that board quite close to the subject.




I was using my Vivitar 283 manual at I guess 1/8th power one side and some reflective foil the other to try and light up the rose. Suporting that rose was very problematic and I settled for poking it through a hole in board!

I also taped some card to the gun head to prevent the light spilling onto the board and had the tele lens adapter on the flash gun to concentrate the light.

Other settings I can't recall but it was all flash illumination and I think something about f8. I didn't have much room to work having been told not to stink the place out with the joss stick! So I was banished to the shower room with the fan on.

Mike

Mike, This image looks ok to me. Its too small anyway to detect what might be going wrong. Can you upload a bigger version? From what I notice the background does look black to me, unless I am missing something.

I even shoot my smoke with full flourescent lights on in my shed, all 4 of them and at quite a very bright ambient, and yet my background come out almost 000 black. Mattmatic explained this to me that once my settings are for underexposure in relation to the ambient light then only what I light with the flash will appear in the image.

I then just use the brush to darken the bits and pieces that remain with smoke and then tweak it with curve in PP. But you can only do this if your BG is really close to dark.

I remember once I shot a series of them but allowed the flalsh light to come into the sensor from a narrow angle and it ruined the whole batch.

That one was OK some others needed some reworking.

Mmm a shed - what luxury!

Mike

Mike, I used to have one of the rooms in the house as my office (I work from home, I have a home based office) but wife decided to turn that into the children's bedroom when my second son was born so I was pushed into the box room. Too tiny for my equipment and paperwork, so the shed was the deal I had for a bonus.

My kids have left home so I use of their rooms as my office now and rent out the office I used to use in town, it's a mixed blessing but brings in the money.

Mike

Mike

try spraying the rose with water first and then smoke it up the way you have been doing. The smoke patterns alter and they shape up slightly differently due to the extra moist. If you manage to get the background and the lighting spot on you are going to have a cracker of a shot

Keep us posted on how you get along, and show us some images, looking forward to some cracking ones, you are on route to it.

Also remember difference of air temperature has effects on the way the smoke rises. And also other things influence a lot the patterns. If you want to have a look at how it affects try these couple of things:

1- Find a way to heat the room (your bathroom as you mentioned where you are taking the shots), proportionally, nothing too tricky, just find a way to raise the heating a bit and wait to get that feeling of being a little bit overheated for comfort. Remember to keep window and door closed, so as insulated as best. Light the incense stick. Then open the window or the door, just for a fraction of a second, like as if you are opening the door to come in or out. That will allow a sudden flux of different air temperaure to move into the room. Shut the door immediately and stay put and observe the smoke. After the first few seconds of the flutter of the smoke due to the air inlet once it settles you will see a few patters for the next couple of minutes.

2-Another example, this is a simple one. Keep the room with windows and door closed again. Light the incense. Stay put without moving at all standing next to the incense. Do not face it as even your breathing will affect it even though you might think you are far away, so turn your back to the incense stick. After a few seconds move away from it by walking normally away just a few steps and then stop and look at the smoke. You will immediately notice that there are patters forming, usually the rolling ones like waves.

Be careful not to get the room full of smoke as it will not only ruin your shots as the environment becomes hazed but it won't be good for you to inhale anyway

Try it and let me know how you get along