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10 Tips To Shoot Smoke
Shooting smoke can be viewed as a perfect example of abstraction genre
in photography. Pictures of smoke are widely used both in commercial
(smoke pictures are sold well at photo-banks!) and art photography. And
it has simple explanation for that - a nice picture of smoke looks
quite effective and uncommon. But it is really hard to get original
pictures of that kind because shooting process has lots of
peculiarities and nuances.
Let's talk about the key moments of
smoke shooting. Referring to this information, you can start
experimenting and create interesting and unusual shots.
1. The source of smoke
Different perfumes or cigarettes
are used for the smoke shooting. But please keep in mind, that smoke of
perfumes differs from the smoke of cigarettes. They all have its own density, texture and appearance.
It also concerns perfumes, because some of them produce dense smoke,
while the others may give a more dimensional look, for example.
2. Stage and background
Shoot in such a facility, where there's limited air flow. The main task for a photographer is to illuminate the smoke, leaving the background absolutely black. Black background can be used during image editing and working with exposure. For that reason your lighting source should be relatively small, and the background has to be arranged at a certain distance. Lighting arrangement scheme could be the following:
3. Lighting
One
more important issue is concerned with lighting. In the picture of
smoke you'll see a clear difference of lighting arrangement. You cannot
create overexposure on the shot - it looks spectacular, but limits
possibilities of image editing, transforming white areas on the image
negative into 100% black. At the same time, backlighting makes smoke more contrasting and attracting.
It is more convenient to use external lighting, since it is easier to be controlled and relocated. While a snoot would make it a pointed lighting source.
4. Exposure
For the shots of smoke you may select your shutter speed at 1/100 sec., since a more shorter value will not give you any preference. The diaphragm has to be closed at its maximum. Feel free to close it up to f:16 - this will allow to increase the Depth of Field (DOF), which is absolutely necessary for these types of the shots.
5. ISO
If it is allowed by your lighting scheme, try to use ISO 100 during shooting. This will give you huge possibilities during editing.
6. Focus
Probably
you already had a chance to observe smoke. Generally you may receive
sharp details at curls and joints of the smoke, so image sharpness can
only be assessed on these elements. The speed of auto focus will help you catch the right moment of smoke formation, but if you use manual focus, your eyes get tired too quickly.
7. Image verification
Without
any doubt, it is quite difficult to assess the received picture and its
exposure on the camera display. In this case you'd better use histogram,
so as to understand how much the black color is black in the
background, and how close the white color is approached to the smoke.
8. The form of smoke
In fact, the form could be of any kind. If you want to receive a nice form of the smoke, you can try to do the following: fix a perfume stick and push it slightly
- you'll see fading vibrations of smoke, creating a beautiful trail. If
you need to receive a dense trail, use 2 perfume sticks and find the
right type, producing lots of smoke.
9. Post Processing
Only
during editing you can make beautiful and original pictures from your
regular shots. The main thing is not to be afraid of experimenting. In
order to understand the process of smoke editing, you can use a preset for Lightroom, which makes an image of smoke more spectacular.
Working in Photoshop
you can experience quite an amusing image editing. For example, if you
want to make a black smoke in the white background - just invert your
photo (Photoshop -> Image -> Adjustments -> Invert). And if
you want it to be colored - create a Layer, fill it by color and assign
a Color Mixing option. Also you can edit brightness and contrast.
10. Have Practice
You
may have lots of unsuccessful shots, your lighting source may not have
enough time to recharge, when the smoke makes up a nice bend, and the
right moment could be just spoiled by misfocus. But only such practice
would make your pictures the most valuable for you, and you'll
accumulate such experience for your next more successful tries. May be you'll surpass the results of Mehmet Ozgur.
So,
keep on trying and join our Photocontests!
Read more:
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