Fire photography

[dieselnut]

I've read a lot of topics on this forum so far with great interest, had a couple of my photo's critiqued, and am slowly getting back into photography.

Beginning of August, the Stockton International Riverside Festival is on, a lot of street theatre, mime artists, and best of all, shows involving fire... I've been along the past few years with my old Nikon 990, and taken some passible shots of the events (barring shutter lag, and my missing the shot entirely), the only thing I've failed to capture, which I think would make some spectacular photo's is the firebreathers and fire jugglers.

I've managed blown fire, and a reasonable shot of the artiste, (for artiste, read pyromanicac ) or some nice flameball shots, where everything else was under exposed . Does anyone have any top tips to get a good shot ? Any examples of what I should be looking at?

Matthew

Edited to add: Canon EOS350D, with the stock lens, and a 70-210mm F4 zoom, polarising filters and skylite filters

Edited by dieselnut on Friday 21st July 00:28

[Imperialism2024]

I'm thinking it would involve an ND filter...

[_dobbo_]

I reckon if you can use a tripod for some longer exposures, you'll get some great looking fire trails, and the light from the flames should illuminate the juggler a bit. Athough he/she wont be sharp because of the movement.

[White_van_Man]

These 2 were taken at le mans in 2005. I think they were taken in shutter priority with about 1 second exposure. They were taken with the D70 kit lense and without a tripod

[dieselnut]

I like those photo's Alex...

thanks everyone for the tips, I'll post a couple of shots once we have the festival in town

[_dobbo_]

Thinking about it, something like a 1 or 2 second exposure will capture the fire trails, then if you set the flash to rear curtain synch it will fire just at the end and should nicely freeze the artiste.

[dieselnut]

Is the curtain sync thing possible on a canon 350d ? I should reeeally go back and read the manual again !

[_dobbo_]

I would guess it is - you can do it on a D70, and they are specced roughly the same.

I reckon it actually wouldn't matter if the flash fired first or last, so it doesn't need to be rear curtain synch, just a long exposure with the flash firing at some point during it.

Practice in your living room just to see how the camera behaves with the flash on for long exposures.