Fire and Flames

caroline · January 24, 2009

I would really welcome some advice about shooting 'fire' and flames. I don't mean fire in a big way as in forest, house etc but tight in on it. Ideally I need to show the source of the fire as wood rather than any other kind of fuel. Somehow I would like it to be more than just a record of flames.
This is for a project that includes other subjects - wood, water, metal and earth as in the chinese 5 element theory
Any thoughts please :-)

Caroline

pathfinder · January 24, 2009

Caroline, you may find the brightness level difference between the flames and the wood fuel difficult to capture in a single exposure. You may have to shoot a proper exposure for the wood fuel and another exposure for the flames, and then blend them together later in PS.

Some folks will shoot up to 5 or 6 frames one stop apart and then blend them as an HDR image also. HDR does not work that well for moving subjects like flames though, I have trouble with it with water falls sometimes.

I would be interested to hear how folks deal with moving subjects when capturing HDR images.

caroline · January 24, 2009

Hi Pathfinder,
I think you are right about needing to blend a couple of exposures because of the brightness level difference.

The attached hopefully is an example, I've never included a pic with a post before so hope this works as an attachment ? If not I'll upload it later

Ideas about how to be a bit more creative than just straight shots would be welcome too, not that they are easy, the heat, changing brightness, sparks flying off, smoke ........all good fun , I think.

Caroline

ziggy53 · January 24, 2009

If you shoot a fire at close to sundown (or even deep shade) you can generally get enough illumination on the fuel source (wood, charcoal) to make it belong in the image.

You can use some "fake" logs to help keep some natural wood color.

You can create a fire that allows some wood to be shown and not readily consumed. (A "teepee" fire or smaller sticks on top of a more strewn and robust logs for example.)

Example snapshots, just to demonstrate but not anything suitable for your project:

pathfinder · January 24, 2009

Ziggy,

I had a thread here on dgrin about my schema for creating this image

in February 2005.

There was a separate exposure for the torch, the flame and the ice, by using a long shutter speed with flash, but after an extensive searching with google, I'll be darned if I can find it.

I described using flash to light the ice as it was hand held, and a long shutter speed to allow the flame to render.

This was why I suggested two exposures may be needed.

One could use flash to illuminate the wood, and a longer shutter speed to allow the flame to be captured.

pathfinder · January 24, 2009

Ziggy,

I had a thread here on dgrin about my schema for creating this image in February 2005.

There was a separate exposure for the torch, the flame and the ice, by using a long shutter speed with flash, but after an extensive searching with google, I'll be darned if I can find it.

I described using flash to light the ice as it was hand held, and a long shutter speed to allow the flame to render.

This was why I suggested two exposures may be needed.

One could use flash to illuminate the wood, and a longer shutter speed to allow the flame to be captured.

caroline · January 24, 2009

Thanks Pathfinder & Ziggy for giving me some food for thought

The shot I posted was simply one of an open fire in our local pub, just taken because I've never photographed flames EVER before. Its a good idea to build the setup as you said but we have wet, wet weather here right now :-( and it would need to be outside somewhere and probably not in my garden.

A farmer was burning some cut down wood in a field last week nearby, I asked if I could take some pics and he was fine about it but I was amazed to learn that he has to apply for a license to have a fire in his own field !!

Anyway your responses are much appreciated, I had a complete block abut this.

Caroline

Travis · January 24, 2009

Look under the Nikolai's Assignment thread in Technique. There was one from about a year ago that was on flames with some great captures and advice.

Edit: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=66200

eL eSs Vee · January 24, 2009

I think your best bet would be to use a strobe or camera-top flash (or a flash on a bracket or stand) to illuminate the fuel, while experimenting with shutter speed and aperture to get a good balance between the strobe, flame and the glow of the fuel.

Nikolai recently had this assignment, too: Take a Match.

ziggy53 · January 26, 2009

pathfinder wrote:

Ziggy,

I had a thread here on dgrin about my schema for creating ... a separate exposure for the torch, the flame and the ice, by using a long shutter speed with flash, but after an extensive searching with google, I'll be darned if I can find it.

I described using flash to light the ice as it was hand held, and a long shutter speed to allow the flame to render.

This was why I suggested two exposures may be needed.

One could use flash to illuminate the wood, and a longer shutter speed to allow the flame to be captured.

Hi Path. Was this the thread?:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=6109

Yes, I agree that for the most control a composite might be necessary.

P.S. My bad, I see that it was a combination of flash and drag shutter to produce the final image.

pathfinder · January 26, 2009

How DID you find that!!?? Thanks Ziggy!!

I googled everything I could think of, and also went back on the search for every thread where I was the original poster, and could not find that thread anywhere!:D

I thought, perhaps, it had been lost somewhere by dgrin. Not a great thread, but I knew I had written a thread about how I shot that image.

Thanks again!

I think the technique I described would work for a fire image also

Fire and Flames

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