Fire ... and now what?

[rmettier]

I've seen a few nice fire pictures recently, and finally got the chance to try it myself yesterday. I wanted a sharp image of the fine details and amazing shapes in the flames, and that worked nicely with a short exposure and fairly high ISO. I think the fire itself looks quite good in this picture. However, I haven't done any post processing yet, as I'm not sure what I could/should go for. for instance, I think the light background diminishes the effect of the fire a bit, but because I can't just crop it out, replacing it would be quite a large task. Disappointingly, due to the short focal length the large aperture didn't blur out the background as much as I was hoping for.
I like how some of the stones are slightly illuminated by the fire, so maybe attempting to bring that out a bit more would be a good idea.

Any ideas how to progress from here? Or how to take a better shot of this type?



n.b. I read the excellent recent tutorial about how to make cool fire images with petrol and a glass surface, and quite enjoyed it, but I'm going for the campfire look here.

EXIF:
Camera Canon EOS 550D
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture f/3.5
Focal Length 17 mm
ISO Speed 800

[Tranquility]

As far as photographing fire, I have no experience there, so will leave the critique for someone with more knowledge on it.
I like this photo.

I agree with you on the bright background. In Photoshop, or whatever you might use, using a selection tool to darken the sky would likely be a tedious nightmare, but I believe that you could fix this by creating another layer, coloring it a dark, solid gray, erase the majority of what you dont need of it (the bottom half of the dark layer), or more, if you chose, then adjust the opacity to blend it and darken the sky.

I am new at trying to explain these things, so I hope that makes sense!

[AdrenoJunkie]

Really nice looking fire. I haven't been able to get it to look that good when I've tried it. You could always just take the picture at night

[AdrenoJunkie]

Or lower your ISO maybe.