Photographing smoke - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM

02/08/2006 01:13:39 AM · #1

I certainly wasn't the first (or the best) person to photograph smoke but I had a few comments and PMs about how I did it so I thought I'd share. It's super easy. The smoke is from a stick of incense. It's lit from the side using a strobe light. That's really all there is to it. My biggest difficulty was in focusing on the moving smoke in lowlight so I ended up using manual focus and kind of hoping. Using a brighter room probably wouldn't hurt. :) The color is done with a color overlay layer, except for my Blue II entry, which was just done by colorizing the hue/saturation to meet basic editing rules. If you want it on a white background, just invert the image.

I've had a good time goofing around with these.

oOWonderBreadOo

Canon EOS-5D

02/08/2006 01:17:21 AM · #2

very cool- I always wonder how these are done & they look great :0)

edit to ask did you move the stick around at all or just let it go?

Message edited by author 2006-02-08 01:18:35.

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

02/08/2006 04:41:58 PM · #3

Originally posted by oOWonderBreadOo:

very cool- I always wonder how these are done & they look great :0)

edit to ask did you move the stick around at all or just let it go?

Just let it go. It's stuck in one of those little holder things. That's just how smoke comes out.

Tallbloke

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

02/08/2006 05:19:24 PM · #4

Any chance you could add aperture, ISO and shutter speed info to the shots?

Thanks for posting, I'll give it a try soon

Steve

Artifacts

02/08/2006 06:16:36 PM · #5

MK... Thanks for the tip. When taking smoke pictures I don't want to... welll... blow it!

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM

02/08/2006 09:08:46 PM · #6

Originally posted by Tallbloke:

Any chance you could add aperture, ISO and shutter speed info to the shots?

Indeed I can. :)

KarenNfld

02/08/2006 09:14:04 PM · #7

Do you do these in your house (as opposed to a garage or shed)? Wondering if the smoke from incense "dirties" up the walls and ceilings.

digitalpins

Canon EOS-60D

02/08/2006 09:14:41 PM · #8

those smoke shots are great

02/08/2006 09:17:50 PM · #9

Originally posted by KarenNfld:

Do you do these in your house (as opposed to a garage or shed)? Wondering if the smoke from incense "dirties" up the walls and ceilings.

I do them in the house. I've not noticed any dirty or sooty junk so far. Makes it smell like a hippy den, though. ;)

crayon

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

02/08/2006 10:01:26 PM · #10

do you have to cover your nose while doing it? :p

Brenb

Canon EOS-60D

02/08/2006 10:10:49 PM · #11

Hey Mk those are some really nice smoke shots. I really like the design on the 2nd one on the 2nd row.

Mulder

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

02/17/2006 04:35:15 AM · #12

With the strobe light....

Do you do a longer exposure to capture the movement, or just hope the shutter goes off on one flash?

bfox2

02/17/2006 04:43:43 AM · #13

I've always wanted to get shots like those, though I havent had much luck with my little on-camera flash. . I did get a nice non-flash incense/smoke shot for a macro challenge, which wasn't on topic at all but ohwell. The light for this was a blue LED penlight, like the ones you put on keychains, and I only shined it on the smoke, then a long exposure to get the nice large fan above the stick. For a main light I had one 60w bulb off to the side to get the incense and the holder.

Tej

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

02/17/2006 05:10:37 AM · #14

This one from me is purely sunlit (from window above background) No problems is auto-focus due to ambient light. Used black background and made it darker sinply by increasing contrast.

Smoke photography can be interesting as you can get abstract figure. I could see dancers in mine.

gloda

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

02/17/2006 05:30:38 AM · #15

I never manage to make my background dark enough. When the light is fine on the smoke, it his the background as well and even though it's black paper, you will see that there's something behing the smoke.

front_element

Nikon D700

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

02/17/2006 05:55:37 AM · #16

Originally posted by gloda:

The best ways to avoid this are to move the background further back (needs bigger area of black) and also to use a piece of card to 'flag' the flash off the background (light the smoke from behind or to the side).

gloda

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

02/17/2006 07:22:01 AM · #17

Yes, I'm rather limited with my backgrounds. I only have a black sheet of paper which is +- 1m x 0,5m. The problem is that the light is reflected off the walls of my room and spreads all over.

Lumendipity