Photographing Smoke

[Nicole]

Since next week's assignment is smoke, I wanted to try my hand at photographing smoke again. I'd previously read this tutorial, but my first attempt a few months back didn't turn out very well, mainly because of a lack of light. I still don't have a flash, but my setup was slightly different this time.

Gear used:

• Nikon D50
• Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G lens
• Tripod and Remote
• Black piece of fabric
• Incense
• 500 watt halogen work light (which was under $15 at the hardware store) similar to this

My favourite shot of the set was this one:



The settings used were:
ISO: 200
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/100
Focal Length: 85mm

Post Processing:

Of course, smoke shots look their best when they have colour applied to them. So, to do this, I used Photoshop, but I'm quite sure it can be done in other programs. First I cropped the photo and adjusted the white balance in Adobe Camera Raw. I used the auto white balance setting and this took away some of the yellow-ish hue that the work light had given it. Next, I adjusted the levels bringing the black slider slightly to the right and moved the white slider to the left so that the white popped more from the black. I applied the unsharp mask at 125%, 1 px. Also, some of the light was showing, so I edited that out.

Now, I added the colour. I created a new layer and filled it using a gradient. I picked one of the preset gradients for this one, but some of the other ones were colours of my choice. I then set the blending mode for the layer with the gradient to "Color" and then adjusted the opacity slightly. Some didn't need the color opacity changed, but I found that when I used blue, the opacity needed to be decreased anywhere between 10-50%.

The rest of today's smoke photos can be seen in this set.

And that's how I took it

[thingy]

...and very nice it turned out too Nicole.

[thingy]

Oh and I love the whitle background shots in the set too, especially Smoke [6]. Very nice.

[Saralonde]

This turned out really nice, Nicole. When I tried this last January, my set up was similar. The differences: I used my macro lens and a colored gel on my flash. If any one is interested in the free gels, here's a link. Of course, this will leave it one color, rather than the multi-color Nic posted.

[windrider86]

i tried doing smoke awhile back and after seeing these I'm gonn have to try it again. Mu husband just loves it when i do this and the whole house smells like incense. lol

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by Saralonde

This turned out really nice, Nicole. When I tried this last January, my set up was similar. The differences: I used my macro lens and a colored gel on my flash. If any one is interested in the free gels, here's a link. Of course, this will leave it one color, rather than the multi-color Nic posted.

I honestly wondered if this would have been easier with a macro, but since I don't have one, I made do with what I had. I do think that there's the potential for things to turn out better with a sharper lens though.

Also, it looks like you had good results with the gel I was so using the poor mans setup lol Your colour is very vibrant using those gels.

Thanks for the compliments guys, this was the first time it really turned out, so I'm still working on getting the most out of it. I guess I'll have to try doing a few more with the white backgrounds in post.

[Nicole]

Same picture as the original one in this post, but after the comments about the white ones, I reworked it to have a white background.



The only difference in the post-processing was that I inverted the smoke layer so that it had a white background (which also required a few more touchups with the paint brush to get rid of a few areas that showed up more when I changed it to white). I found that you have to make the whites stronger in the original smoke to get good results when you invert the picture. I did more adjustments in the levels, but also used the fill light function in ACR to brighten the smoke a bit.

[Sime™]

Me, on the other hand... i'm having moral issues with the photo I want to take... I have a friend [she's french] who [is it possible] smokes really well.. it looks cool... [no kids - do NOT smoke!] BUT she won't let me take pictures of her doing it... so, i'm going to have to do it myself... BUT... I don't smoke.... hmmm... maybe i'll have to get the incense out afterall... grrrr

[peeperita]

nicole....these are beautiful.....i would love to follow your lead with them this weekend....(since twigs are out for the time being)...

thanks for sharing....

peeper

[snapdragon]

This is very interesting ,but i am chemical senesitive person , so smoking & inscents are out , any one ever try the smoke that comes from a blown out candle ? scent free that is LOL . this one sounds like one i may have some trouble with .I will have to get out the old thinking cap LOL .