Playing with Fire

Carl Ayling

Carl Ayling

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Carl
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Trying out different settings to achieve something close to a good image of lit candles. This is probably the best of the bunch but wondering if there are any tips and advice that may help me improve.

Three candles by Carl Ayling, on Flickr
 
I will jump in here Carl.
I will say in the first instance this would probably be better served in one of the photo sharing forums, perhaps General Photo sharing?

To get the ball rolling on the image, I feel that your ambient light levels are too bright. I think it needs to be a lot darker so as the flames are the key lights.
The reflections on the side of the bowl are a little distracting. I would be tempted to have them in a shallower bowl/plate and shoot at a lower angle.

You could have a very small aperture stopped down to around f11-f16, spot meter on the flames to hold the detail in the wick.

Might be worth asking one of the mods to move this thread.
 
blakester said:
I will jump in here Carl.
I will say in the first instance this would probably be better served in one of the photo sharing forums, perhaps General Photo sharing?

To get the ball rolling on the image, I feel that your ambient light levels are too bright. I think it needs to be a lot darker so as the flames are the key lights.
The reflections on the side of the bowl are a little distracting. I would be tempted to have them in a shallower bowl/plate and shoot at a lower angle.

You could have a very small aperture stopped down to around f11-f16, spot meter on the flames to hold the detail in the wick.

Might be worth asking one of the mods to move this thread.
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Hi Iain. Yes absolutely right, should have posted in General Photo feedback ... ooops. Perhaps @Cobra would be good enough to transfer the thread over for me.

As usual, several things were competing for my attention and instead of focusing on one, I tried to get them all. In this case, I liked the patterns of the "table cover" (a disused cherry box) as well as the pottery bowl in which the candles sit. As for the angle, I did take some at the more usual 90 degrees but quite liked this one taken at a slightly unusual elevation. Perhaps I should have just concentrated on the candles .... at least for now.

Ah! Thank you ... I wondered about both the settings, metering in particular. That's great - I'll give that a go. Thank you for the advice.
 
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d00d said:
Hi Carl

I know how you like your 52s ... well here's a candle shot I took for 52s in 2014 - week 49 Round:-

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/d00ds-52-in-2014-week-51-extravagant.523860/page-18
scroll halfway down.

Probably the first & last time I did anything with candles. My 35mm f/1.8 was new and I just set the ISO to 100, Aperture Priority @1.8

It's not bad, but I think my photography has improved a bit since then. :thinking: erm maybe.
Click to expand...

Hi David. Fancy seeing you here ha ha. Nice to be able to look back on last year's 52 I must say - very interesting. You've definitely improved - no question ... not to take anything away from your 2014 submissions at all. I clearly went wrong with the metering which was probably thrown out by the ambient as Iain pointed out. My flames are just blown out to a blanket white whereas yours I can see retained detail and yellow/orange colouring. Must try harder methinks. Thanks David.
PS: Really liked the vibrancy of "Live" from last year.
 
Carl Ayling said:
Hi David. Fancy seeing you here ha ha. Nice to be able to look back on last year's 52 I must say - very interesting. You've definitely improved - no question ... not to take anything away from your 2014 submissions at all. I clearly went wrong with the metering which was probably thrown out by the ambient as Iain pointed out. My flames are just blown out to a blanket white whereas yours I can see retained detail and yellow/orange colouring. Must try harder methinks. Thanks David.
PS: Really liked the vibrancy of "Live" from last year.
Click to expand...

Thanks, yes that "Live" shot went down well. :)
 
Carl Ayling said:
Wow! That is an amazing shot - love the colour as well as the detail in the wick. Not got the equipment to even get half as close but would be over the moon to at least get that level of exposure.
Click to expand...

In fact it's a fairly simple shot, the kind you could get with a fairly simple set up like I used.

What kind of camera do you have?
.
 
Yeah the second one is better - looks like you were using a very high ISO in the first shot - in fact using a low ISO and a long shot would work better probably as long as you used a tripod and also used the time delay before firing the shutter.
.
 
petersmart said:
Yeah the second one is better - looks like you were using a very high ISO in the first shot - in fact using a low ISO and a long shot would work better probably as long as you used a tripod and also used the time delay before firing the shutter.
.
Click to expand...
Thanks Peter. Yes, the first is very grainy but both were taken with the camera held flat on the floor for stability. You're right - should have used the tripod and timer. Out of interest, what do you use to set white balance?
 
Normally I just use Auto unless I'm taking pictures with a predominant cast such as in woods etc when I might use a white piece of paper to set the custom white balance.

As far as I remember I may just have adjusted in PP for a pleasing effect since in this case you can have a wide range of differing hues.
.
 
petersmart said:
Normally I just use Auto unless I'm taking pictures with a predominant cast such as in woods etc when I might use a white piece of paper to set the custom white balance.

As far as I remember I may just have adjusted in PP for a pleasing effect since in this case you can have a wide range of differing hues.
.
Click to expand...
Ah! OK thanks Peter - just puzzled me and wondered if I should set by temperature.
 
petersmart said:
Definitely a vast improvement but with some banding .

Are you using JPEGS or RAW?

What editor are you using?
.
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Hi Peter. Processed RAW in Adobe Bridge and imported into Photoshop. I did use the Blur tool to soften the edges and a bit of Dodge & Burn too. Is banding caused by over-processing do you think?
 
Could be - I call it banding but not sure if that's the correct term to explain the particulate nature of the phenomena.

I probably notice it more since I'm viewing it on a 40" LED TV used as a monitor.

I'll try to do a bit of an edit to get rid of it.
.
 
Oh that's nice of you Peter. Must try and understand the cause and effect a bit more. I suppose it looks grainy too on a 40" screen - some monitor !
 
This is just a quick edit using the blur tool at 100% blur and a large circle over all the "bad" areas:

Candle Edit by petersmart on Talk Photography

Unfortunately since I was not working with the original and a small picture any further attempt here would result in real banding - however you can get the general idea.
 
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Where was it that you saw the worst banding Peter - at the top half would you say? Hard with my sub-40" LED monitor ha ha.
 
What on earth !!!! 3000 views and 129 fave's on Flickr within 24 hours of posting. Thought it was good but really ?!?!

Candle by Carl Ayling, on Flickr
 
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