Have you ever had a day (or in my case late evening) when you just want to
shoot/practice/create something, and sometimes you just can’t get out of the house? Well, here’s a fun little project to get those creative needs satisfied! How about capturing smoke trails... Below are a couple of my favorites from my latest project!
This is really quite an easy process, but it takes some gear to accomplish capturing the smoke trails.
Here’s what I use to help me capture amazing smoke trail images:
Here’s what I use to help me capture amazing smoke trail images:
- Nikon D800 camera body
- Nikon 85mm f1.8 lens
- 2xNikon SB-900
- 2xHonl ¼” Grids
- 3xPocketwizard Plus III transceivers
- 3xManfrotto 5001b light stands
- Manfrotto Tripod
- Manfrotto Justin Clamp
- Black Reflector or black seamless paper
- Incense – preferably something you will enjoy the aroma!
I usually do this in the garage because of the amount of smoke and the amount of flashes going off. Of course, it helps to be able to ventilate the room if you need to. Check out the basic lighting diagram provided below for how I set up every time shoot.
Let’s take a couple of minutes and describe what is going on. First, let’s start with the background. Since the smoke is whitish/gray, the black background helps separate the trails once they are lit from the strobes. I use two flashes facing 90 degrees from the camera angle to sidelight the smoke trails to help define them better. The flashes are only about 3 feet away from the subject. I place the lights about 12 inches above the smoke source. At the end of the boom arm I put the Justin clamp. This clamp is only there to hold the incense stick and any clamp will work, as long as it’s stable. The two flashes have Honl Grids attached to help restrict the light from spilling outside the subject area, which helps keep the background nice and dark. You could make small flags out of black poster board and rubber band them to the flashes. I set the camera and lens on a tripod just outside the minimum focusing distance. I usually put the camera in Portrait position because the smoke rises of course. At first I use a flashlight to focus on the tip of the incense stick, then I turn the lens autofocus off.
From here, it’s all about shooting the smoke! You will find, if left alone and the air is still, the smoke will only be a straight line. So sometimes you need to encourage the smoke with a little air movement. I use a 5x7 card, my hand, and of course just blowing some air. Here you can just fire away! I use a longer focal length because smoke is quite small. I usually shoot 125 to 200 images in a session. You could shoot more, but then the cull process gets a little tedious.
Now for the creative part – import your images into your favorite catalog system or editing application and start viewing them for interesting and possibly recognizable images. Once I find a shape I find compelling I will edit the image to enhance the shapes that I am after. I tend to use a black paint brush to clear out areas of smoke that detract from the image. I crop, rotate, and spot heal as well to clean up the image. Sometimes I “Invert” the image to create a white background and use Hue / Saturation to colorize the image. You can see some of the editing I did in the images below.
So get your setup going and feel free to send me questions if you have them! Don’t
forget to share some of your favorites!