Smoke On The Water_MG_2331 Best Viewed By Pressing L
Smoke On The Water
How did he do that???
Equipment Required
What do you do with yourself on a Saturday when the weather has defeated your planned outdoor shoot?
Easy pop into the loft which is where I have my makeshift editing suite, and I mean makeshift AKA low budget cobbled together bit of man space !!! LOL
Once in the no expense spent man space it is time to “build” the studio set up again with no budget available, you guys getting the idea yet? If not what I am trying to show is you don’t need any expensive or major technical equipment to achieve this shot.
I used my old portfolio case as the black backdrop.
3 Blank DVD cases to stand the incense stick and holder on, getting too old now to lay on the floor!!
A few incense sticks, one incense holder and a metal cooking tray out of the microwave(hope the wife doesn’t read this!) to stand the incense stick on, thus hopefully avoiding a major house fire!
One box of matches
One empty toilet roll holder (cheap snoot) more on that later!
1 gorillapod see above re being too old to lay on the floor
1 remote shutter release (Hong Kong ebay special) cheap as chips!
1 Canon Camera
1 50 mm lens
2 Canon Flash Guns
Process
With the lights on, fix the incense stick into the holder and place on the metal tray on top of the 3 dvd cases.
Put your black backdrop behind the incense stick, any matt black material/object will do.
Fix your camera with attached flash onto the gorillapod, set this flash to master and ensure you turn off it’s ability to flash in the menu, we only want this one to trigger the slave flash.
Fix the other flash (slave) to the little supporting foot supplied and turn it on remembering to set this as your slave unit.
One point worth mentioning is that this shot can be achieved with just one flash gun providing you can trigger it off camera
Put the toilet roll holder (our home made snoot) over the flash head, the light now has to travel down the tube and is contained, preventing it from lighting your black backdrop and from flashing directly into your camera lens.
Position this slave flash slightly behind the incense stick to one side and pointing away from the backdrop, but not so much that it flashes into your lens.
Turn on your camera, F11 ISO 100 200th second
Focus it on the end of the incense stick
Light the incense stick and turn out all the lights, you want a dark room setting for this to work!
Use your remote shutter release to take the photographs, the remote is not absolutely necessary if you are gentle with your camera when pressing the shutter release.
Take loads of shots and have a look on the back of your camera to make any required adjustments to the set up.
Remember you want to light the smoke only, not the backdrop our the lens.
Load your pictures into your post processing programme and start having fun.
This image was duplicated the background layer filled with blue and a bit of jiggery pokery in opacity, blending modes and an unsharp mask applied.
Well that filled in half an hour on a boring Saturday.
Smoke On The Water_MG_2331 Best Viewed By Pressing L
Smoke On The Water
How did he do that???
Equipment Required
What do you do with yourself on a Saturday when the weather has defeated your planned outdoor shoot?
Easy pop into the loft which is where I have my makeshift editing suite, and I mean makeshift AKA low budget cobbled together bit of man space !!! LOL
Once in the no expense spent man space it is time to “build” the studio set up again with no budget available, you guys getting the idea yet? If not what I am trying to show is you don’t need any expensive or major technical equipment to achieve this shot.
I used my old portfolio case as the black backdrop.
3 Blank DVD cases to stand the incense stick and holder on, getting too old now to lay on the floor!!
A few incense sticks, one incense holder and a metal cooking tray out of the microwave(hope the wife doesn’t read this!) to stand the incense stick on, thus hopefully avoiding a major house fire!
One box of matches
One empty toilet roll holder (cheap snoot) more on that later!
1 gorillapod see above re being too old to lay on the floor
1 remote shutter release (Hong Kong ebay special) cheap as chips!
1 Canon Camera
1 50 mm lens
2 Canon Flash Guns
Process
With the lights on, fix the incense stick into the holder and place on the metal tray on top of the 3 dvd cases.
Put your black backdrop behind the incense stick, any matt black material/object will do.
Fix your camera with attached flash onto the gorillapod, set this flash to master and ensure you turn off it’s ability to flash in the menu, we only want this one to trigger the slave flash.
Fix the other flash (slave) to the little supporting foot supplied and turn it on remembering to set this as your slave unit.
One point worth mentioning is that this shot can be achieved with just one flash gun providing you can trigger it off camera
Put the toilet roll holder (our home made snoot) over the flash head, the light now has to travel down the tube and is contained, preventing it from lighting your black backdrop and from flashing directly into your camera lens.
Position this slave flash slightly behind the incense stick to one side and pointing away from the backdrop, but not so much that it flashes into your lens.
Turn on your camera, F11 ISO 100 200th second
Focus it on the end of the incense stick
Light the incense stick and turn out all the lights, you want a dark room setting for this to work!
Use your remote shutter release to take the photographs, the remote is not absolutely necessary if you are gentle with your camera when pressing the shutter release.
Take loads of shots and have a look on the back of your camera to make any required adjustments to the set up.
Remember you want to light the smoke only, not the backdrop our the lens.
Load your pictures into your post processing programme and start having fun.
This image was duplicated the background layer filled with blue and a bit of jiggery pokery in opacity, blending modes and an unsharp mask applied.
Well that filled in half an hour on a boring Saturday.