Up in Smoke

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Smoke photography is a technique I have seen in workshops, but not tried at home.  In its simplest form, it is photographing wisps of smoke.  From a practical point of view, it is a much different beast trying to get the smoke to behave the way you would like.  In other words, you have to control as many variables as possible.

When things go according to plan, and you feel a little creative in Photoshop, here is the result:

For the photographers in the crowd, here is the set up:

The camera is set up approximately 8 feet away from the incense, and the incense is approximately 3 feet away from the background.  It is set up this way to enable the flash and reflector to blast the incense with light, but keep any spill light from hitting the camera or background.

The camera was set on manual, manual focus, ISO 200, aperture of f8, and shutter speed of 1/100 sec.  The flash was also set on manual, 1/2 power, and fired with remote triggers. I tethered the MacBook Pro to the camera using Lightroom 5. This was the first time I tethered a laptop to the camera and was very happy with the result, instant feedback on a decent sized screen.

The most difficult part of the setup was controlling the air flow.  I was set up in the garage, so there was a fair amount of air flow.  Air flow from side to side was Ok, as it was within the focus area.  Air flow from front to back would mean that some of the smoke would be out of focus.

It did not take long to understand how the smoke generally behaved, and when to fire the shutter. Here is a typical shot that I thought had potential to work on in Photoshop.

Once in Photoshop, a few quick steps such as a rotation clockwise, colourize the smoke, and clean up the smoke a little, and this is the end result.

Doesn't even look like the same image, does it? Once you get used to the routine, then you can try mirroring the effect, like this:

The image at the top of this blog entry was given the same treatment.  That image was a composite of a single image, mirrored 4 ways.

You can also change the background from black to white (no colour added).  Here is a before and after:

There were several images taken over the course of the shoot that resembled faces.  I caught this one right away, although Mary Ann didn't see it quite the same way.

Depending on how creative you feel, the possibilities are endless.  There are many more images here to play with, I'll save those for a rainy day.

If you are reading this blog for the first time, don't forget to review the archives at the right side for earlier entries. And feel free to add a comment, as well as share this blog with your friends. If you have not already done so, please enter your email address in the "Follow my Blog by Email" box on the right hand side. It will be much easier for me to stay in touch with you. If you don't see a signup box on the right side, then click on the blog heading and that should take you to a webpage with better graphics. You should then see the signup box on the right side.  If you have trouble signing up, send me an email at mark.girard@rogers.com.

Thanks for reading...

Mark

Starry Night in Algonquin

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My last blog entry looked at the sunrise and fall colours of Algonquin Park.  As I mentioned in that entry, Ron and I met our friend Glenn Springer for a trip into the park.

Not only did we shoot the sunrise and fall colours, but we spent the night before shooting the stars.  We left Glenn's place in Minden around 12:30 and made it to the park around 2:00 in the morning.  The weather conditions were perfect.  Mild temperatures, no wind, and not a cloud in the sky.

We were searching around the park for a location that had a northern exposure, with something interesting in the foreground.  We decided on the Lake of Two Rivers.  There was a beach on the south side of the lake, so the reflections off the lake and the tree line provided the foreground interest we were looking for.

Here is one of the first shots out of the camera.

I loved the reflection of the Big Dipper in the lake.

Since we were shooting in a northerly direction, we could not understand why there was so much light above the tree line.  That's Algonquin Park to the north. Then it hit us. It was the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights.  How cool was that?  Then we noticed something else, directly overhead....

The Milky Way was directly overhead!  Very cool, indeed.  We don't see stars like that in the city.  Between the Northern Lights, the Milky Way, and the dozens of shooting stars, we were like kids in a candy store.

Here is another image of the Northern Lights with the lake and canoes in the foreground.

We set out photographing the stars to attempt an image of star trails.  Essentially, we shot 140 images of the stars in rapid succession, then combined them into a single image, so that the stars appear to circle Polaris, the North Star.  Here is my first attempt.

Each image was taken at a 30 second exposure, f2.8 with ISO 1,600. The 140 images were shot in RAW format, then imported into Lightroom.  After a few minor adjustments, and copying those adjustments to all 140 images, each image was rendered as a high quality jpeg.  StarStaX was used to combine the images into the final image.  StarStaX is a free download for a PC, or an experimental version for the Mac.  The Mac version worked flawlessly.

Pulling an all-nighter was the most fun I've had in a long time!

If you are reading this blog for the first time, don't forget to review the archives at the right side for earlier entries. And feel free to add a comment, as well as share this blog with your friends. If you have not already done so, please enter your email address in the "Follow my Blog by Email" box on the right hand side. It will be much easier for me to stay in touch with you. If you don't see a signup box on the right side, then click on the blog heading and that should take you to a webpage with better graphics. You should then see the signup box on the right side.  If you have trouble signing up, send me an email at mark.girard@rogers.com.

Thanks for reading...

Mark