My Try at Fire and Ice -

pathfinder · February 6, 2005

My plan from the very first when this challenge was announced was to use a propane torch and to photograph the flame passing through an ice cube. Seemed like a pretty simple idea. I had no idea what would be involved.

Photographing the head of the miniature propane torch is easy. But the flame is very pure blue and does not show in a straight image in electronic flash if the torch itself is exposed correctly. The flame is just washed out.

Well, a long slow exposure will capture the light on the torch as well as the flame itself, but now the ice is moving too much because I was holding it by hand.

If I used flash exposure, I could capture the torch head and the ice, but again the flame was not captured due to the brief flash exposure which helped keep the ice from moving but was to brief for the flame to be captured.
I finally figured out that a long 1/4 second exposure would capture the flame and a second shutter flash exposure would capture the torch head and keep the ice from being blurred due to movement. A second shutter flash means that the shutter is opened for a time exposure and the flash does not fire until the last instant before the second shutter closes.

But the flame is still kind of subtle, so a little high school chemistry to the rescue. Drop a little table salt into the flame and it glows yellow or course.

Put it all together and the result is this....

This has been a learning experience of the best kind.

I am eager to hear criticism and suggestions as always. :thumb

Tim Kirkwood · February 6, 2005

PF,

This is great. I enjoyed your story and your shots. Very imformative and a learning experiance.

Your end result is very nice. The only thing that I may have done is overlapper the org. flame to the blue flame a bit more.

Its a great idea and makes me realize how much I have to learn.

Thanks for sharing the process.

Andy · February 6, 2005

of course i can't say if you'll be picked or not, but i give you an "a" for effort, and thanks for the story to go along with it!

pathfinder · February 6, 2005

andy wrote:

of course i can't say if you'll be picked or not, but i give you an "a" for effort, and thanks for the story to go along with it!

Thank you Andy. I think there are more artistic images here for the challenge than mine, but I started out with a specific shot in mind and found a way to capture it. This was not a "found" shot, but a pre-visuallized and pre-planned shot. Rutt used to talk about preplanning and previsualisation.

I learned how to use 2nd shutter flash today and a long exposure to accomplish my goal, so it was a productive enterprise for me, and I hope others find my posting the technique interesting and helpful as well.

Andy · February 6, 2005

pathfinder wrote:

Thank you Andy. I think there are more artistic images here for the challenge than mine, but I started out with a specific shot in mind and found a way to capture it. This was not a "found" shot, but a pre-visuallized and pre-planned shot. Rutt used to talk about preplanning and previsualisation.

I learned how to use 2nd shutter flash today and a long exposure to accomplish my goal, so it was a productive enterprise for me, and I hope others find my posting the technique interesting and helpful as well.

and herein lies the reasons why we *challenge* ourselves

pathfinder · February 6, 2005

Tim Kirkwood wrote:

PF,

This is great. I enjoyed your story and your shots. Very imformative and a learning experiance.

Your end result is very nice. The only thing that I may have done is overlapper the org. flame to the blue flame a bit more.

Its a great idea and makes me realize how much I have to learn.

Thanks for sharing the process.

I'm not sure I understand Tim. My final image is NOT a composite - it is a straight shot out of the camera captured in RAW. Converted in RAW, curves, cropped slightly, a little Overlay blending to bring out the tip of the flame on the upper surface of the ice, sharpened, and that was it. No compositing whatsoever. Here is the file straight from RAW for comparison...

My Try at Fire and Ice -

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