[Pics] Smoke pictures.

[mattx]

I've been taking pictures of smoke today [ geeky ? Sure ] If you have not tried it then do because it's great. If you do then make sure you get some nice smelling incense sticks as the ones I used made me feel quite ill after the first hour....
Anyhoo - pix here:

Smoke - a set on Flickr

[Andrew_C]

Filters on the lights, or the lens?

[mattx]

Filters on the lights, or the lens?

Photoshop. Adjustment layer and then some hue and saturation.

[mark]

That's really good Matt

[bladedanny]

They'd make great desktop wallpapers.

[tech_guy]

Just loving smoke art 3!

[mattx]

Just loving smoke art 3!

Thanks - shocking thing was I ended up doing that on an old Dell Laptop - when trying to flattern the image [ as it had quite a few layers ] - the disk swapping went on for about 10 mins and I thought I would lose it. Luckerly I didn't.

[mattx]

They'd make great desktop wallpapers.

The purple one I may use as the school's wallpaper as the school's colour is that shade of purple. Will look quite modern. [ As you can guess it's a smoke picture just turned on it's side. ]

[TwoZeroAlpha]

What backgound were you using for the photos if you don't mind sharing? Might have to have a go over the xmas break.

[mattx]

What backgound were you using for the photos if you don't mind sharing? Might have to have a go over the xmas break.

Just black card, the darker the better. With it black you can then darken it more in photoshop [ using levels ], then inverting to made the background white is much easier.
Also touching up the photos afterwards [ getting rid of any lens flare and odd bits of smoke ] with it having a black background certainly makes it easier.

So black background is a must.
Table lamp on the left to light the smoke [ something for the camera to focus on as it can see it ]
Off camera flash on the right with large paper fins [ black ] directing right over the area where the smoke is. Flash has to be in sync with the camera. I was using manual and auto focus.
ISO can be set to 200 and the flash power to about half to speed up the re-cycling times. Also having someone to waft the smoke is a good idea !!

This would be a great thing for kids to do if any school has a photography club - we don't.