Camera settings

Im suprised there has been no threads on this.

What camera settings are best to capture enough light trails from fire and glow poi so it looks good but not overly bright/dull

I dont know that much about camera but i tried 2 second shutter speed with an F value of 6 and it looks quite good but not great

Whats settings do you use to get great pics?

oh, i have a Canon Powershot A540

Fastest exposure, smallest shutterspeed possible gives the best effects.

A search for 'camera' gives this thread.

It's a small thread and really only has a couple of useful bits...

 Written by: coleman

use the lowest possible iso settings when shooting with digital cameras - the higher the iso, the more noise you will get in your image.

and this link here to a canon DSLR user guide.

Searching for 'photo' brings up this thread, which has a fair bit more info in.

Personally, I prefer to use an ISO of up to 400 and a shutter speed somewhere between 0.5 and 1 second with the camera picking the f stop (because I'm lazy )
That's usually because I want to get a bit of a trail, but not too much that it's just lines of fire surrounding a blur - I like being able to see the person spinning.

Also, it depends on how fast they're spinning - I'll try to match the shutter speed with the poi speed so I get a nice and tidy trail without lots of random extra bits.

Obviously unless it's really cold out I'll happily sit playing with different settings and see if anything good comes out of them - the benefits of a digital SLR and lots of storage
Really, everything's very dependant on the shot you want and the circumstances in which you're taking it - what makes one photo look great can also make a slightly different one look crap.
Unless you're using a film camera, there's no excuse not to play around.

For anyone interested, my gallery

I like the delayed flash settings for fire/glow, the extra shutter time for the trail and then the flash to freeze the performer.. Obviously that works better the more complete the blackout, and you'll get anybody else watching whinging about how flash photography and glow don't work, but if you can put up with that...

There's a feature about this on www.domorepoi.com

it really much depends on what you consider a "beautiful (fire) image"...

Personally I like anything from 1/3rd to 3 seconds and a "second cutain synchonized" or any type of flash incorporated (flash + long term exposure = trails + performers visible)... There have been a numer of threads (like Bovril Monkey showed) and certainly you will find more on FlickR (like the ones of Master Jonathon Brown) to give you inspiration.

Happy digiz

So I finally figured out enough camera stuff to be able to get decent shots.
First you need to know about a few camera terms and their settings

-----The Triforce of Exposure-----
These 3 options are the most important part of taking a good photo

ISO- This is how sensitive your camera is to light. Lower ISO means you get a finer, crisper picture but it becomes less sensitive to light. Higher means the picture will be fuzzier but will capture more light. You can think of this as makes darks darker and lights lighter.
-I switch between 200 and 400 depending on the mode I put my flowlights on

Shutter Speed- Probably the most important since you are taking a motion picture, this is how long the camera will capture the action. In Auto mode the camera normally takes a picture in 1/60 of a sec., most levels you will find are for fractions of seconds but all cameras have at least 1 full second for shutter speed. Because you are filming over a long period of time if you are holding the camera then even the smallest shakes will make the picture blur so a tripod is a must.

Aperture- You will probably find this on your camera as F#. This is how much light your camera lets in (note this is different then ISO which is how sensitive the camera is), think of Aperture as the iris of your eye, the larger the hole the more light is let in and the smaller the less light. One thing to keep in mind when setting this is that smaller numbers let in more light and vice versa.

These 3 things are the most important to taking a photograph (Focus is also up there but I overlook it most times and just put on autofocus) and will make the biggest impact in your pictures



Flash- (Coming Soon (maybe))
Focus- (Coming Soon (maybe, don't get your hopes up for these))

For more detailed and probably better information go to http://www.digital-photography-school.com/