Shooting Fire

Hi guys, I've seen a few threads before where people have been taking pictures of fire.

I was messing about with it today - I just put the camera on 'S' and started snapping away. However, results really reflect the effort put in. How do you take these pictures? I was messing with ISO a bit as well but found I was getting some unwanted noise, but I was getting sharper images.

Anyone got any comments?

Volthar

Fantastic pictures. I would like to give it a go but... do not have a fireplace

TJM

Something that burns with a tall flame is essential. Another poster suggested firelogs were best.

High ISO doesn't really matter IMHO. There's no fine detail to be captured anyway so subsequent noise reduction will work well (if you have some software for that).

This was taken with the following settings:

Exposure: 1/3000 sec
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 210 mm
ISO Speed: 1600

1/3000 sec was overkill - I was still effectively freezing the flame in later shots at 1/1000. There's so much light coming from the fire itself that I doubt you have to worry too much about the ambient light. I needed f/8 though - depth of field becomes a problem otherwise (assuming you're using a longish lens to avoid being singed).

countryjimbo

I like the flames in the first but prefer the last one as the glow from the coals give it more context. Good results, well worth the efforts.

Borderfox

I use spotmetering to shoot flames

What is spotmetering?

Some of the ones I took with a higher ISO. Still can't get that intensity of color though

quilmore

Deleted User wrote: »

What is spotmetering?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metering_mode

nikon also has matrix metering, which is great except for cases like this one

TJM

For the intensity of colour you're looking for, I suspect you'll have to do one of three things:

1. Zoom in. Fill the frame.
2. Up the exposure.
3. (Variant of 2) Lengthen the exposure (allowing the flames to leave more of a trail).

If you up the exposure you might find you can now see the rear wall of the fireplace and no longer have the desired flame on plain black background effect. In that case, open up the image and play with levels / curves until you've brought the background back down to black.

ThOnda

I did some fire shooting on Friday. If you throw a tea candle (wax only) onto red hot coal, it would produce wonderful flames.
And talking about metering, I made one shot in Av mode, checked how it looks and went for M (manual). Shooting is eventually free, so no problem in hit and try.

Fionn

yeah I dont have an open fire!!