Smoke and How to Shoot It.

One thing I have always wanted to photograph well is smoke.  However, I never had even tried before.  No problem because once you understand the process and whats needed to get around your environment, you are able to put together a workable plan for any shoot.

Its not an entirely difficult shot to pull off.

First you need something to make smoke.  Don't waste money on cigarettes or anything like, buy incense, it smells better and the smoke lasts a lot longer.

Place your incense in a holder of some sort and then choose a background.  I bought a piece of black art board form the dollar store and set it up about 4 feet away from the incense.

Now for your light source.  I wouldn't recommend using constant light.  Strobes are easier to use and more effective.  You can jack up the power as high as you want and you dont have to worry about getting the temperature too high.

I had a single strobe for this shoot, a Canon 430 EXII and shot through an umbrella softbox.

Now you have to control your ambient lighting.  Even if you manage to have a good black backdrop, you will still have some grays.  Well, you will if you have a small room and bad lighting regardless. 

That means you have to play with your settings.  Shooting in manual mode make sure that you expose so your surroundings are all blacked out without the use of a strobe.  Then change the settings on your flash so that you will be able to light the smoke and be properly exposed.  

Doing this will make sure you have an all black surrounding and only your smoke is light.

Now you have the last problem, which is focusing.  Keep your lens in manual and figure out where your focal point will be and keep it there.  This takes some practice and if you have a good shallow lens, forget about using the widest aperture.  I used 2.8 for my f-stop.

Then just fire away.  Tweak your settings as you see fit and have fun.  You can change the color easily by placing a gel over the flash or changing your whitebalance settings.