Now for the questions....
Can you post a photo of your device or give details of its volume/size? What size holes are in the chicken wire? I think the holes in my device may be too small.
Do you put the camera in to manual focus and infinity as we had problems with af. I had to shine a small torch at the camera from where i stood. How long does your wool burn for?
The wool we used was very fine and i think this mayve been the problem as it was down to a small cindering ball in a matter of 5 seconds!
Oh and for the record i didnt get burnt but did nearly rip my little finger off and also hit myself in the toon halls with the cage when i tried to change direction! OOF
Thanks in advance, Phil
Hi philip.
its great to see people heading out and taking wool shots. Sorry for the delay in reply i just wanted to sit down and give your questions some proper time and thought.
Question 1 - Can you post a photo of your device or give details of its volume/size? What size holes are in the chicken wire? I think the holes in my device may be too small
My cages size change quite regularly, but recently ive being using the cage size below. the holes in the wire are just about 1cm square, so pretty small. From looking at your photo they are slightly bigger?
Wool cages by
stokes tog, on Flickr
Question 2 - Do you put the camera in to manual focus and infinity as we had problems with af. I had to shine a small torch at the camera from where i stood.
I put the entire camera into manual and use manual focus. I use a stone, leaf or something that is easily identifiable on the floor where im going to spin and then get someone to either shine a torch at the lens, or hold it above their head and shine it onto their body, so that i can focus the camera in.
This site has other methods of focusing in the dark
One thing to remember is the potential size of the spray, depending on the type of photo your going for you need to think about how far back the camera is, at the moment i am trying to bounce wire wool off features, as to change the "flow" of the spray.
Question 3 - How long does your wool burn for?
This depends on the amount of wool i use, i rarely fill the "cage" entirely and have found that the key to a nice "spread" is to take the wool and pull it apart, almost like you would with cotton wool. You can pull it apart, and i tend to do this to make the wool ball twice the size it was. This seems to give a more even burn and spread.
To answer your question specifically, ive had wool burn anywhere between 20-40 seconds. I use the finest wool i can find, i think this gives brighter and more "streaks"
One thing to note as we are going through winter is that the wool really does get affected by the temperature and damp. Always keep your wool in the bag it came from, and if possible re-seal it using a bit of duct tape. Some nights the wool can be a real mare to light, and just doesn't want to play. generally these are the damper colder nights.
I tend to vary my exposures between 8 - 30 seconds depending on the effect im looking for. If im just looking for a "big spread" photo and im shooting from 20 metres away then i will exposure up to 30 seconds. Alternatively if im trying to light or show a feature (like a ruins) i will shoot closer and exposures for say 8 seconds, but boost the iso to show the feature... or do multiple exposures and stack them.
I hope this answers your questions and if you have any more let me know. im planning on doing a tutorial for the forum, but am not sure if there is a need?