David and Goliath - Black Saturday Photo

[PhysioDave]

Hi all, I'm a newbie to this critique section so please let me know if I am asking the right questions or typing too much

This was a photo I took with my new D90 whilst fighting the Black Saturday fires in Victoria, Australia (7th February, 2009) as a volunteer CFA fire fighter.

For the best part of 7 hours, we had been staged at this house awaiting the arrival of the fire front which we could see over the rise. As the fire came closer, we started to consolidate the control line with burning back using the 3 fire crews and two NSW crews on the road (you can see the lights of one of the tankers in the photo). However, within seconds the ground-running fire (which we thought we had control of!!) raced up a tree and started to shower both us and the house with embers. You can see the fire fighters amazement as the trees erupted in flame (I was just as stunned from behind the camera and a few expletives might have been uttered).

My questions for this photo are:

1. Do you have any suggestions with the cropping of this photo, as I am concerned the fire fighters are not on the rule of thirds cross-overs due to placing the water tank on the bottom left cross-over. I could crop to put the fire fighters on the bottom right cross over, but that would possibly remove too much of the fireball behind the trees.

2. Is it too awkward to look at the photo given the grainy nature of it?? Apart from the lower light levels, I think I had the camera set to automatic ISO so I think it chose the highest ISO setting. Is it a good habit to set the camera to a lower ISO setting for all shots??

Your thoughts and advice will be greatly appreciated!

Dave

Exif details:
Camera: Nikon D90 (insured so it comes along with me packed in with my fire gear!!)
Lens: AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED
Date Taken - 9/02/2009
Time Taken - 3:31 AM
F-stop - f/3.5
Max Aperture - 3.6
Exposure Time - 1/13 sec.
Exposure Bias - 0 step
Focal length - 18mm (35mm focal length - 27)
Flash mode - No flash

[barabe]

Welcome to DPS,

I think you have an amazing capture, the firemen are in the lower 1/3 of the shot so it does respect the rule but who cares about the rules when you have an picture oportunity like this one. Maybe if you would have croped higher to get the top of the threes to show the amplitude of the fire ball would have been nice. I don`t mind the grainy shot because sometimes it is the only way to go to get the shot. Most cameras come with noise removal software, you may want to consider giving it a try.

by the way Exif files would be nice to fully comment on your shot.

[DannyTheNiceGuy]

i'm just a beginner so not sure but i think cropping that block thing on the left would be good. it seems to distract me a little.

[mapgirl]

This is an AMAZING shot! Who cares about rules when you've got a situation like this. And the lurid way the fire lights the trees from below makes the picture for me.
The only thing I can think to say is that I wish you had been shooting with a faster shutter speed to get a sharper image. With all the light from the fire, I'm wondering if the auto setting didn't slow the exposure and keep the ISO too low. IF (big IF) you are in a situation like this again and can keep your wits about you (I probably couldn't ), you might want to use a faster shutter speed and a higher ISO so you can freeze some of the motion. With a subject like this, personally, grain doesn't bother me that much.

[PhysioDave]

Thanks for the feedback!

Some great ideas so far as to how to better compose and capture the drama of the scenes at hand.

I've got Photoshop CS3 but only very new to it so still don't quite know how to drive it yet. I'll have a look into whether it was noise removal. I have already taken the image off the camera so some post-production modification is probably called for.

So with the faster shutter speed and the higher ISO, would that not also cause a grainy shot? I thought the higher ISO's would increase the grainy nature of the shot, but does this not impact as much as the higher shutter speeds?

Short of being in a situation like this again in the near future, I'll have to try and speed up my shutter speeds with some different night shots to get the hang of this....as they say - practice makes perfect, and I'll need a lot of practice!

Thanks again!

Dave

[barabe]

Originally Posted by PhysioDave

Thanks for the feedback!

Some great ideas so far as to how to better compose and capture the drama of the scenes at hand.

I've got Photoshop CS3 but only very new to it so still don't quite know how to drive it yet. I'll have a look into whether it was noise removal. I have already taken the image off the camera so some post-production modification is probably called for.

So with the faster shutter speed and the higher ISO, would that not also cause a grainy shot? I thought the higher ISO's would increase the grainy nature of the shot, but does this not impact as much as the higher shutter speeds?

Short of being in a situation like this again in the near future, I'll have to try and speed up my shutter speeds with some different night shots to get the hang of this....as they say - practice makes perfect, and I'll need a lot of practice!

Thanks again!

Dave

Both High ISO and/ or long exposure will increase the risk of having a grainy picture

[mapgirl]

What ISO were you on actually? Check your metadata in Photoshop and you'll be able to find that info for each shot.

[PhysioDave]

Originally Posted by mapgirl

What ISO were you on actually? Check your metadata in Photoshop and you'll be able to find that info for each shot.

Checking it in Adobe Bridge, the ISO was 6400!! Wow, that's pretty huge. I've had a bit of a play with the camera since taking this photo (3 months after buying it) so I now know how to control the ISO a bit better.

It's amazing what what you can learn when you tinker with stuff!!