Polynesian Fire Dancer + Luck

[Jgrear22]

10/1250, f/5.6, ISO 1600 @ 200mm

The Story: I'm at a luau about 25 feet from the stage with my Nikon D60 mounted on a Gorillapod. I had settled for some vacation snapshots with my pop up flash activated, since the light was bad. The shot before this one is here:

http://shakesgrear2.wcsd.wikispaces....e_edited-1.jpg

This image was shot at 10/1000. When they asked for no flash photography for the fire dancer, I closed the flash and changed the shutter to 10/1250, not really expecting anything to be clear but hoping for some cool fire trails.

The performer came out on to the stage in the approximate space as the woman, so the moment I saw a flare of fire, I pressed the shutter (without looking at the viewfinder!) and when I saw the screen, I was stunned. Knowing I had decent settings to capture the show, I fired off another 30 exposures. None came out better than the first one.

My camera is not good at this ISO, and I have yet to run the image through a noise reducer, but I learned a lot about my camera, intent, patience, and of course, luck.

A few more of the trip can be found here:

Oahu, Hawaii - a set on Flickr

[freybear3]

o wow, pretty neat pix

at first sight, i thought the watermark was his tattoo for a second lol

[toasted75]

Very cool - the red glow the fire casts over the performer is sensational

[tylernothumbs]

I thought the same thing, would have been a weird tattoo at closer look...