Photographing Smoke

[Murtasma]

I got my Alien Bee B800 last weekend with no light modifiers besides the included 7in dish. I decided to try photographing smoke but I wanted to use a snoot to control the light better. The snoot from Alien Bee will run you about 100 dollars because you have to buy the LiteMod Unit Mainframe which runs about 50 dollars, the snoot is another 50.

The snoot is really just a small tube, with the mounting system on the Alien Bee surely there must be a much more inexpensive way to accomplish the same thing. I went to Lowe's and thought a Duct Connector would work perfectly.

This is what I bought for $2.95 these reflect a lot of light internally so I had didn't have much of a problem with light loss when using this snoot. If I want to make the snoot even tighter I can cut some foam core and tape it to the front for an even smaller snoot for a few cents.

Duct Connector.


Setup
1. Large Black Muslim Fabric hung from a door then closed to hold it in place.
2. Table about 5 - 6 feet away from the door
3. Incense with holder placed on table
4. Tripod
5. Strobe unit with DIY Snoot attached about 2 feet from the table at camera right perpendicular to the camera

Settings
F-Stop: F9 - F10 depending on how closer the smoke was moving toward the strobe unit
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/200 I also used a 15 second shutter then manually fired the strobe a few times during exposer for some interesting effects as well. You will need to power down your strobe some if you want to do this and not blow your highlights out.

Strobe Settings
Between 1/4 and 1/2 power I used the modeling light so I could see where the light was falling once the strobe was properly placed I turned the lamp off since I won't really need it.

Shooting
Setup your tripod; I used a focal length between 40 - 50mm (Full Frame Body) you will want to be pretty close to the smoke depending on how large your black backdrop is you may be able to go wider. Prefocus your camera on the stick and make sure your lens is set to manual focus only. Once you have everything setup light the stick and start shooting. Depending on the power your using with your strobe, your ambient light in the room you can probably shoot with the lights on. I had no problem shooting with the lights on but you may want to try turning them off. It did make a slight difference for me with the lights off but having them on was more important to me so I could see what the smoke was doing. Any slight color cast or background lighting introduced by having a tungsten lamp on can easily be corrected in photoshop. I also tend to like the color it sometimes added to the smoke it makes them more interesting I feel.

Take a bunch of pictures but watch the smoke as well. You may want to cover your eyes with your arms seeing those strobes go off so frequently will mess with your eyes and you'll see spots.

Post Processing
Since I kept the smoke far from the background and was using a snoot my background was pretty much completely black except for a few areas here and there mostly from the fabric not being completely flat, these were easily cloned out in seconds. Just play around with masks and Hue/Saturation adjustment layers the possibilities for processing are really endless.

If you want a white background with black smoke just invert the image!

Woman on Fire


Sound Waves


Witch on a Broom


Future Imrpovements
1. Try using a reflector as well
2. Use Foam Core to change the diameter of the snoot
3. Place objects in the stream of smoke to get different patterns
4. Play with air flow

[private]

THat is a pretty nice series. I think I might have to try that.

[capturedbybrooke]

Very cool. I've been dying to try that. Thanks for the tips!

[zona5101]

really like the effect.

[arlon]

How are you generating the smoke?

I might give this a try the next time my wife cooks a dinner..

[Murtasma]

Just an incense stick

[allyanderson]

Sweet photos! And ha ha (Arlon)....hope your wife doesn't read this forum

[arlon]

An incense stick might be pretty easy to come by..
Wife never reads THIS forum.. (-:}

[ressalg]

Very cool photos. Would like to try this but like everything else there's just not enough time.

What are you using to hold the incense stick? I would think that, with the right holder, you could actually say, flick the stick so that it bounces and causes different disturbances in the smoke.

Thanks for sharing... hopefully I get around to this project.

[Murtasma]

Nothing special just a holder like this.

Amazon.com: Aqua Green Iridescent Multi-Colored Hand-Blown Glass Incense Stick Holder Burner with Dolphin: Kitchen & Dining

Flicking the stick is an excellent idea I'm going to try this next time.

Thanks!