Fire Dancers... Any tips?

[Eyad]

Hi all,

I'm going to photograph some fire dancing performers juggling around with flames and other cool stuff tomorrow.

I haven't done this before but I guess I'll carry around my 50mm (it'll be night time) and hope for the best

Any tips I should look for in terms of equipment/ settings/ lens...etc? I was thinking of metering for the fire and use f/4.5.

Thanks.

[ravncat]

depends alot on how much light there is - 50mm should be alright, how close can you get? can you move about? If you use a flash, the challenge is to balance the color of light and let the torches shine through.

You'll find that continuous shooting can be useful. The fire is bright, so autofocus may choose to track the fire over the dancer's faces. You'll need a flash if you want to balance ambient with fire, if it's dark. Lots of things are possible.

Here are a few shots from a street performance by a river near me. - i took these with an 85 1.8 (but on a full frame camera, so that's simmilar to 50mm on a crop), these are mostly unprocessed / as shot, one has a slight crop, theyre all saved for web.



iso 800 1.8 1/1000


iso 1600 4 1/350


iso 400 2.8 1/30

[Nicole]

My tip? You don't need nearly as long of an exposure as you might think because of the fire. But, you want to balance that with the fact that it's much better if you get some movement. Meanwhile, these were all done with a 50mm f/1.8 on a D50.


1/5s, f/2.5 ISO 200.


2", f/14, ISO 200

And this one is a little more static, but...

1/50s f/4.5, ISO 200

So there really aren't any default settings for it because it will depend on the effect you want and the light that's available. Experiment a lot if you can, and be ready to throw out a lot of shots as well.

[Eyad]

Thanks guys.... For the 1" or similar are you using tripods?

[Nicole]

Yep, at 1"+ I'm using a tripod.

[ShantDotMe]

I guess it depends on what effect you want to get (w trail or not) n if they are "posing" for the shot only or doing a live show.

This was shot at the final ceremony of a scout camp, he was moving around a lot n it was to catch him for a pose!



1/400 - f5.6 - iso 1600 w Canon T1i/500D