Before reading this blog entry I'd like to say that I don't support smoking in any form and I'd like you all to try this out using incense sticks and share your experience.
Now this has been one of the best photography experience I'd towards the end of 2015. I was exploring different photography videos at the DigitalRev TV channel in Youtube and I happened to come across the Smoke Photography tutorial. Link has been given below.
You can have a look at this video and find out why its so interesting. Now let me narrate my experience.
The first time I tried this out was at my room. I finished watching the video and I knew I have to try this out. I have a Benro T600EX tripod bought from Amazon and a Nikon D3000 with the kit lens. Not a great expensive setup, but I need to improvise. The big thing that was missing was a good lighting setup and a black background.
So I decided to use the black screen of my laptop as a background and my cellphone flash as the source of light to illuminate the smoke. I took a few incense stick along with its stand and lit them up. I carefully put the incense right in front of the laptop screen. I turned on the cellphone flash light and it provided ample amount of illumination. I setup my DSLR on the tripod and switched to self-timer mode. I took the first shot at f/8. The picture was acceptable, but the smoke was too little. I lit another bunch of incense sticks and after several tries, I finally got a nice shot and I proceeded to edit it in Lightroom. A few tweaks and I got a nice beautiful shot.
My first Smoke Photography picture
Now this has been one of the best photography experience I'd towards the end of 2015. I was exploring different photography videos at the DigitalRev TV channel in Youtube and I happened to come across the Smoke Photography tutorial. Link has been given below.
The first time I tried this out was at my room. I finished watching the video and I knew I have to try this out. I have a Benro T600EX tripod bought from Amazon and a Nikon D3000 with the kit lens. Not a great expensive setup, but I need to improvise. The big thing that was missing was a good lighting setup and a black background.
So I decided to use the black screen of my laptop as a background and my cellphone flash as the source of light to illuminate the smoke. I took a few incense stick along with its stand and lit them up. I carefully put the incense right in front of the laptop screen. I turned on the cellphone flash light and it provided ample amount of illumination. I setup my DSLR on the tripod and switched to self-timer mode. I took the first shot at f/8. The picture was acceptable, but the smoke was too little. I lit another bunch of incense sticks and after several tries, I finally got a nice shot and I proceeded to edit it in Lightroom. A few tweaks and I got a nice beautiful shot.
My first Smoke Photography picture
I name this picture the 'Two trails of Smoke'.
Now the second experience was too good to be true.
I
was at my friend's apartment on New Year's eve smoking and watching a movie
on the projector and I was watching the smoke getting illuminated by the
projector beam. There was a whole lot of color in the smoke and I just
ran to my bedroom and got my DSLR with my new Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G.
I started blowing some smoke into the projector beam and using the projector light exit as a focus lock, I started clicking shots after shots and each one was special in its own way. Have a look at one of the shots attached to this entry.
I started blowing some smoke into the projector beam and using the projector light exit as a focus lock, I started clicking shots after shots and each one was special in its own way. Have a look at one of the shots attached to this entry.
The beautiful blend of colors really excited. I took around 50 shots and all of them are yet to be edited. This has been one hell of an experience. To say the truth, I went that night and had a nice contented sleep to wake up to a lot of partying the next day and the partying went on for the week.
