Shooting a illusion of colorful smoke

First of all I have tried this as a fun and not that much expert in this form.
When you are held in the homes during long weekends, there is no other choice than the indoor shoot. And playing with the smoke and light is fun to do.
Preparation: Firstly you need to get bored inside your homes :-)
open the doors of orthodox mind and be ready for the post processing do create unreal effects and illusions.
Equipment:
Smoke sticks (dhoop kaadi), usually are around 1cm thick and 3-4cm long. Or also can get in the form of crystals to be burnt on charcoal. You will easily get these in Pooja items shops.
Black background: black sheet or cloth.
Your sharpest lens (i preferred 50mm) and camera.
Actual shoot:
Arrange the black sheet along the perpendicular surfaces. Put down window curtains in a day time. Or light a small lamp during night, just to walk around the room. Place smote stick in a plate or bowl in front of the arrangement. Be sure that you safeguard the valuable flooring, table top from the burning stick.
Select camera position and aperture settings so as to get the DoF of 4-5 inches. Light the stick and observe the smoke patterns. Focus manually on the stick or the thickest smoke position. Now open on-camera flash and start clicking. Optionally external flash can be used. Actual frames will have white smoke on a black background. Shoot considerable number of frames. Blow slightly on the smoke to get few interesting patterns.
On computer:
Open the shots and select one with the most interesting patterns. Open copy of this in photo editing software.
Feel free to crop/rotate/mirror images for more interest.
Invert the colors of the image. This will make the actual smoke black or gray and background turns white.
Now play with the exposure, contrast and brightness so that background becomes perfect white and smoke is seen prominently without loosing the details in patterns.
Now play with the color balance of RGB-CMY to the extremities as per your wish such that colors of smoke change dramatically. This way one can almost create the illusion of every single color in the universe. Stretch you imagination to shoot different interesting figures in smoke patterns. Even with more time spent in processing and adjusting color balance for different areas in the frame, one can have all colors in the frame.

Do enjoy such homely shoots and treat me if your family members remain happy for you spending weekend at home.
And yes,Do not forget to share the wonderful pics here.
Ananta Abhaar aple!! Jamtay ka baghu lavkarach!
ReplyDeleteLai Bhari.........
ReplyDeletegood one this! Thanks for sharing this techique.
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