Mastering explosions

Desmond

I'm still working on it but I want to try and trigger a decent ball of flames .
I think I need to modify the spark gap a bit . Tonight I set up some 'almost' empty paint cans and shot them , with the sparking circuit leaning up against the can . I had the sound activated trigger connecting the sparking circuit through its relay and had to unplug the battery each time - I think the load is a bit much for that relay and it sticks a bit .
I shot with the D90 in high speed mode at iso 200 , F9 and 1/1000th sec and only got one real fireball out of the lot , none of the others ignited . Since it was raining I stood in the garage with the can just out of the shelter ....



I should have used a wider lens because the fireball crept along the ground and wasn't all in the picture . There was a bit of a 'Boom' and I think the garage window opened a few more inches behind me .



That was a bit disappointing so I set up a plate of white spirits again .




.

Desmond

What really annoyed me was the fact that the 'easy to take ' pictures of a fire burning in the plate looked nicer than the set-up picture that never came out so well ... for now .

DaddyO

Playing with fire. Don't try this at home stuff. Hehe.

With more practice your bound to get what your looking for. Hope its not
a trip to the emergency room.

For the dish I would elevate it on a metal plant stand and then shoot
the picture across it insuring an isolated black background. I'm thinking
some really nice dancing flame photos could come out of that effort.

Your getting some of that here but you have uninteresting ground features
to contend with.

Desmond

DaddyO wrote: »

Playing with fire. Don't try this at home stuff. Hehe.

With more practice your bound to get what your looking for. Hope its not
a trip to the emergency room.

For the dish I would elevate it on a metal plant stand and then shoot
the picture across it insuring an isolated black background. I'm thinking
some really nice dancing flame photos could come out of that effort.

Your getting some of that here but you have uninteresting ground features
to contend with.

Yeah , it was raining and I had nothing much else to do after most of my other attempts failed . The other night I had the plate elevated when it wasn't raining ....

Jack'll do

Very cool stuff! Did your garage survive the experiment?
In the second set I prefer images 1 & 2 as the plate is less visible.

Zanotti

I thought you might like this....
http://www.learnmyshot.com/How-to-Photograph-Fire





Z

Desmond

Jack'll do wrote: »

Very cool stuff! Did your garage survive the experiment?
In the second set I prefer images 1 & 2 as the plate is less visible.

The garage survived ... this time . But last night I spent a few hours trying to work out how to trigger the flames with my wireless flash trigger . I have it switching a 50 volt solid state relay now - all I need to do is connect that to electronic ignition and I can get a 30 000 volt spark each time I press the shutter ....

Zanotti wrote: »

http://www.learnmyshot.com/How-to-Photograph-Fire
Z

Thanks - I reckon 1/320th is giving a reasonably sharp image - once I can trigger a ball of flames with the wireless flash trigger I will be limited a bit in my shutter speed though .