Night Photo help
Aug 16, 2014 12:00:42 #
Love 'em!
I especially like the last one - Jamie Summers on fire!!!
or maybe the female Flash...
Makes me want to shoot some more fire, but since we're in the third year of a drought, the idea of open flames might not be the best :-)
Keep them coming, I am living vicariously through you :-D
GT
I especially like the last one - Jamie Summers on fire!!!
or maybe the female Flash...
Makes me want to shoot some more fire, but since we're in the third year of a drought, the idea of open flames might not be the best :-)
Keep them coming, I am living vicariously through you :-D
GT
Aug 16, 2014 12:47:12 #
GTinSoCal wrote:
Love 'em!
I especially like the last one - Jamie Summers on fire!!!
or maybe the female Flash...
Makes me want to shoot some more fire, but since we're in the third year of a drought, the idea of open flames might not be the best :-)
Keep them coming, I am living vicariously through you :-D
GT
I especially like the last one - Jamie Summers on fire!!!
or maybe the female Flash...
Makes me want to shoot some more fire, but since we're in the third year of a drought, the idea of open flames might not be the best :-)
Keep them coming, I am living vicariously through you :-D
GT
Thank you GT........I really appreciate the positive comments. Thanks to your suggestions and the great photo you posted, I was inspired to see if I could come close to your photo. Jamie Sommers on fire is great...as is the Female Flash!! Luckily, we have had a little rain recently, and since we stayed on concrete, we felt pretty safe to fire hoop. Here's another one that turned ok....taken as the fire slowly flamed out.
Sep 4, 2014 16:08:26 #
If you can shoot these on concrete you could spray the concrete down and get reflections too - that would look great :-)
Have fun!
GT
Have fun!
GT
Sep 4, 2014 23:05:53 #
bigtex2000 wrote:
Last night, I shot some photos of the wife hula hooping with her Fire Hoop. Settings are as follows; f5.0, ISO 100, 0"8 shutter speed, tripod, shooting in manual mode. Canon T3i w/ Tamron 18-270 lens. It was very difficult getting an in-focus facial picture. I kept telling her, "very still", but hard to "freeze" for long. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to help!!
You are asking quite a lot from your T3i, but it is probably able to do what you ask. Your problem? You want to capture fire and skin in the dark. Capturing fire by itself is easy enough, but you want a true rendition of your wife's face. And the background is killing you? Keep a few things in mind. You are probably needing a faster lens than you are using. ISO of 100 is causing you problems you bring upon yourself. Consider trying this: set you white balance to 3000K and turn your ISO loose. Remember, your are going to wind up with approx. 95% of your shot totally dark. Your eye sees it as black, you T3i cannot see black and will use a combination of very dark colors mixed in an attempt to achieve black. The 3000K is a recommended setting to allow an even textured "black". Not exactly a background to exhibit "noise", it will not be there. If the T3i will allow this, try a flash using "rear (or second) curtain" flash. Be sure to use a gel so you won't blast the fire into overexposure. The flash is your chance to expose the face and the gel should keep the fire image manageable. You are probably limited in flash sync to 1/200 SS, use it. To do what you want with this lens you will probably have to go fast with flash.
The best part of photography is the allowance to experiment. This seems to be an ideal situation to do just that. Play with it, try your own ideas. The is nothing you will do that is wrong. Some things might not be as "right" as you would like, but you are NOT wrong. You will learn from this. Please share your experience. GL
Sep 5, 2014 00:18:45 #
davidrb wrote:
The flash is your chance to expose the face and the gel should keep the fire image manageable. You are probably limited in flash sync to 1/200 SS, use it. To do what you want with this lens you will probably have to go fast with flash.
The image just above has Exif data showing a 3.2 second shutter time, at f/11, with ISO at 100. An external flash was used, with first curtain trigger.
The only modifications that would make sense are those aimed at decreasing ambient light exposure (the fire, which is a light source) compared to the flash (which illuminates the person only).
Shutter speed is only affecting how long the light is traced as it moves. If a shutter speed of 1/200 were used the fire would be shown as a single spot of light in one place. Not good at all!
Either ISO or aperture will affect both the brightness of the fire and the brightness of the person. Perhaps ISO 200 or 400 would be okay, and/or a bit wider on the aperture. I'd bet that 1 fstop would be okay, but would also bet that 3 fstops would blow out the fire a bit too much.
The Exif data does not indicate a power setting for the flash, or even tell if it was in Auto or Manual mode. A higher power flash setting would also have made the person bright compared to the fire.
I cannot figure out how using gels would change anything for the better.
Changing the flash trigger to rear curtain would have had exactly zero effect.
Sep 5, 2014 02:27:33 #
Increasing the ISO is not needed, opening the aperture a bit will gain extra exposure for both the flame and flash, a gel for the flash is not needed, increasing the shutter speed would defeat the purpose, rear curtain sync will make a difference - it just may not be obvious.
The fire is making a decent exposure, no reason to raise the ISO. The last little bit of the poi gets rather dark, so opening up will get a brighter flame.
The only reason for a gel is to try and match the color temp of the fire, personal choice.
Faster shutter speed is just the wrong thing to do, you can use a slower shutter, down to 1/2 second - ish, depending on the speed of the movements.
I find it a good practice when shooting slow shutter speeds to always use second curtain syn, because when it makes a difference, it is a big difference. Think of the car lights with the lights where the car is going, not where it has been.
Same with the fire, when you spin the flame always points in the direction the fire is coming from. It looks wrong when the flash catches the hand behind the flame.
Apalfo - the longer the shutter speed and the more movement in the poi, the less noticeable the direction of travel is. You are right in this case it would be difficult to see any difference. Even in the attached image, at .4 sec, you can see the direction, but it makes no difference that the flash was first curtain. This happens to be the shoot that caught me not using second curtain when I should have. A few (lot) of the photos would have been much better if I had. :-(
GT
The fire is making a decent exposure, no reason to raise the ISO. The last little bit of the poi gets rather dark, so opening up will get a brighter flame.
The only reason for a gel is to try and match the color temp of the fire, personal choice.
Faster shutter speed is just the wrong thing to do, you can use a slower shutter, down to 1/2 second - ish, depending on the speed of the movements.
I find it a good practice when shooting slow shutter speeds to always use second curtain syn, because when it makes a difference, it is a big difference. Think of the car lights with the lights where the car is going, not where it has been.
Same with the fire, when you spin the flame always points in the direction the fire is coming from. It looks wrong when the flash catches the hand behind the flame.
Apalfo - the longer the shutter speed and the more movement in the poi, the less noticeable the direction of travel is. You are right in this case it would be difficult to see any difference. Even in the attached image, at .4 sec, you can see the direction, but it makes no difference that the flash was first curtain. This happens to be the shoot that caught me not using second curtain when I should have. A few (lot) of the photos would have been much better if I had. :-(
GT
f/8.0, .4 sec, ISO 100
Sep 5, 2014 03:11:01 #
GTinSoCal wrote:
Increasing the ISO is not needed, opening the aperture a bit will gain extra exposure for both the flame and flash,
That is exactly the same effect. A wider aperture could cause problems with too narrow a DOF. Hence with that particular camera, where the dynamic range is not affect from ISO 100 to just under ISO 400, raising the ISO is a better option than a wider aperture.
GTinSoCal wrote:
a gel for the flash is not needed, increasing the shutter speed would defeat the purpose, rear curtain sync will make a difference - it just may not be obvious.
Rear sync makes absolutely no difference.
The person is exposed by the flash, frozen at that instant. Whether the fire is moved before the flash or after the flash just doesn't change anything, because the fire in either case is moved relatively in the same place, at the same speed, in the same direction. As long as the person is stationary and movement of the fire is cyclic, flash sync is insignificant.
GTinSoCal wrote:
The fire is making a decent exposure, no reason to raise the ISO. The last little bit of the poi gets rather dark, so opening up will get a brighter flame.
The only reason for a gel is to try and match the color temp of the fire, personal choice.
Faster shutter speed is just the wrong thing to do, you can use a slower shutter, down to 1/2 second - ish, depending on the speed of the movements.
The only reason for a gel is to try and match the color temp of the fire, personal choice.
Faster shutter speed is just the wrong thing to do, you can use a slower shutter, down to 1/2 second - ish, depending on the speed of the movements.
The image immediately above was shot with a shutter speed of 3.2 seconds.
GTinSoCal wrote:
I find it a good practice when shooting slow shutter speeds to always use second curtain syn, because when it makes a difference, it is a big difference. Think of the car lights with the lights where the car is going, not where it has been.
Same with the fire, when you spin the flame always points in the direction the fire is coming from. It looks wrong when the flash catches the hand behind the flame.
Same with the fire, when you spin the flame always points in the direction the fire is coming from. It looks wrong when the flash catches the hand behind the flame.
The car's movement is not cyclic. The flame in these images moves only in a cyclic manner. Where the flash sync occurs just is not significant in these images. It certainly is with a moving light source like a car.
GTinSoCal wrote:
Apalfo - the longer the shutter speed and the more movement in the poi, the less noticeable the direction of travel is. You are right in this case it would be difficult to see any difference. Even in the attached image, at .4 sec, you can see the direction, but it makes no difference that the flash was first curtain. This happens to be the shoot that caught me not using second curtain when I should have. A few (lot) of the photos would have been much better if I had. :-(
Unless the above specified distinctions are extant, no difference would be apparent.
Sep 5, 2014 10:32:13 #
Apalfo,
good points, but miss the mark. Raising the ISO and lowering the f-stop have the same effect of increasing the exposure, but the same effect.
There is more than enough DOF, and having the poi out of focus is not a bad thing, it is already blurred.
Yes, some moves are cyclic, but they are directional. Again, I agree, the difference in THIS image would be irrelevant. But nobody I know goes out and shoots only 1 photo, especially when you have such a great subject!
Agreed, the differences would not but obvious, obvious and apparent are not the same thing. I can tell that my photo used first curtain sync, which is why I don't like several of the images from that shoot.
I reiterate, I find it good practice to use rear curtain sync since it will not make an image worse, but it may make an image better.
I appreciate all your input, continued dialog may help the OP, speaking of which, I'm still hoping for more photos :-)
GT
good points, but miss the mark. Raising the ISO and lowering the f-stop have the same effect of increasing the exposure, but the same effect.
There is more than enough DOF, and having the poi out of focus is not a bad thing, it is already blurred.
Yes, some moves are cyclic, but they are directional. Again, I agree, the difference in THIS image would be irrelevant. But nobody I know goes out and shoots only 1 photo, especially when you have such a great subject!
Agreed, the differences would not but obvious, obvious and apparent are not the same thing. I can tell that my photo used first curtain sync, which is why I don't like several of the images from that shoot.
I reiterate, I find it good practice to use rear curtain sync since it will not make an image worse, but it may make an image better.
I appreciate all your input, continued dialog may help the OP, speaking of which, I'm still hoping for more photos :-)
GT
Sep 26, 2014 13:44:06 #
Sep 26, 2014 15:00:27 #
GTinSoCal wrote:
Apalfo,
good points, but miss the mark. Raising the ISO and lowering the f-stop have the same effect of increasing the exposure, but the same effect.
There is more than enough DOF, and having the poi out of focus is not a bad thing, it is already blurred.
good points, but miss the mark. Raising the ISO and lowering the f-stop have the same effect of increasing the exposure, but the same effect.
There is more than enough DOF, and having the poi out of focus is not a bad thing, it is already blurred.
Raising the ISO does not increase exposure. The same number of photons (the measure of "exposure" ) hit the sensor no matter what the ISO values is. But increasing ISO may or may not reduce the dynamic range that can be recorded. The specific camera has a flat DN curve for ISO values lower than 400. Hence up to ISO 400 there is no change in the dynamic range.
Aperture and DOF do make a difference, but that is subjective and a matter of style for the photographer to decide.
GTinSoCal wrote:
Yes, some moves are cyclic, but they are directional. Again, I agree, the difference in THIS image would be irrelevant. But nobody I know goes out and shoots only 1 photo, especially when you have such a great subject!
Agreed, the differences would not but obvious, obvious and apparent are not the same thing. I can tell that my photo used first curtain sync, which is why I don't like several of the images from that shoot.
Agreed, the differences would not but obvious, obvious and apparent are not the same thing. I can tell that my photo used first curtain sync, which is why I don't like several of the images from that shoot.
The difference is not only not obvious, it isn't even apparent. The movement is not straight line, it is cyclic. The direction of the movement has no significance if there is at least one complete cycle of the movement because when that happens it isn't possible to see whether the stationary subject is at the beginning or at the end of the cycle of movement.
GTinSoCal wrote:
I reiterate, I find it good practice to use rear curtain sync since it will not make an image worse, but it may make an image better.
It won't hurt a thing. But it can't help anything in this type of image! There just isn't any difference. The only visible distinction is whether the hand is at the beginning or at the end of the cycle the flame goes through, and that cannot be determine when the motion is a multiple repeated cycle.
Oct 27, 2014 16:20:47 #
that cup demo was interesting. can you tell me what i should be looking for on the two aperture settings? i have abridge camera, and i will have to try that, because i don't think i will get anything on the 3200 setting. thanks for the demo.
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