Question
I have been trying to get images of smoke against a black background has anyone got any advice on the best way to do this and a good lens choice and lighting set up for the job.
Answer
Taking the pictures
- use a joss stick, plenty of smoke and lasts a while. when the room gets smoky, open the widows to get rid of the smoke, this will increase contrast in your pictures
- i used a telephoto, it minimises the size of the backdrop needed.
- make sure the backdrop is black
- use a flash maera left or right, and use a snoot to ensure the flash doesnt fall on the lens / backdrop. i used 2 cereal boxes to block the light
- use a desktop lamp to light the smoke for autofocus
- recommended camera settings to start - iso 100/200, 1/250s shutter speed, f8.
- dont use a tripod, the patterns in the smoke will move and a tripod will hinder you
- alternatively, you can use a tripod, have the camera on manula focus and crop the pictures later.
Post Processing
- use levels to make the background completely black.
- use the healing brush tool t remove any stubborn non-black areas in the background
- use a black brush to trim any unwanted areas of smoke
- load a channel as selction (try all of them to see what's best)
- create new layer from selection, fill white
then you can paint colours or use a colour grad-filter.
Links that i found useful:-
ps i'm no expert, but the above seems to get decent pics:-
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