Forums > Technical Discussion > The best pictures you have seen

Posted: 3rd Jun 2008
Simple long arm whilst the other arm does a normal flower

Wicked pictures though

Burner of Toast
Spinner of poi
Slacker of enormous magnitude

Posted: 3rd Jun 2008
My question is how is he not blurred?

O.B.E.S.E.

Owned by Mynci!

Posted: 3rd Jun 2008
By using a flash after the long exposure.
i.e. the shutter is held open for 2.5 seconds (or whatever) to get the light trails, then the flash goes to capture the person in still motion.
Clever shtuff hey

Burner of Toast
Spinner of poi
Slacker of enormous magnitude

Posted: 3rd Jun 2008
Get your shutter speed very slow, with a flash at the end, in low light conditions. The slow shutter before the flash captures the lights, and the final flash lights up the spinner just for a moment.

Really nice effect, works with fire, but not quite as well as the flames do provide some illumination of the spinner so some slight blurring will occur.

Working hard to be a wandering hippie layabout. Ten years down, five to go!

Posted: 5th Jun 2008
:O

Makes me want LED poi even more. Wish that I had money to give to Flowtoys in exchange for poi.

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 5th Jun 2008
Can I shamelessly self promote?


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Posted: 6th Jun 2008
Lovely photo's - those flowers look fantastic!

Cake or Death?

Posted: 6th Jun 2008
Knoxious - no, it seems you can't

Burner of Toast
Spinner of poi
Slacker of enormous magnitude

Posted: 6th Jun 2008
Way nice pics....

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 7th Jun 2008

 Written by

Get your shutter speed very slow, with a flash at the end, in low light conditions. The slow shutter before the flash captures the lights, and the final flash lights up the spinner just for a moment.

I am not sure when the flash goes off is important. If you make it go off at the end of the exposure, (second curtain sync) you do not have a choice as to the pose the subject is in. Have it go off at the start and you get exactly what you expect.

 Written by

Really nice effect, works with fire, but not quite as well as the flames do provide some illumination of the spinner so some slight blurring will occur.

Close the aperture right down and wind the flash right up for reduced blurring and better looking fire.

Posted: 9th Jun 2008
Good point on the first one, I stand corrected.

And point 2 I'll have to mess with a bit I think!

By which I mean I'll spin and Andi can play with all that complimacated technobabblry hehe

Working hard to be a wandering hippie layabout. Ten years down, five to go!

Posted: 9th Jun 2008
I can understand the assumption that the flash needs to go off at the end of the shot for it to look good, as I thought the same thing. The proof is in the results however.


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As for the aperture stuff, compare these two images:


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This above image was done at a medium ISO (sensitivity) but with the aperture wide open. Note the fire trails are just white over-exposed blurs, with no texture and the blurry artist.

Compare that to this one:


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While I feel there is a lot of room for improvement, this is a better photo. The closed up aperture (F13) means the flame does not overexpose the sensor, allowing more colour and texture to it. Also, the sensor does not see the flame-lit subject very well which prevents blurring. This does, however, result in the need for a brighter flash which can blind/stun the performer.


As an example, the very top photo in this post was made by closing the aperture, winding up the flash and puting the camera into "Bulb" mode. (The exposure time is determined by the length of time you have the finger on the button)

When the performer was in a position I liked, I pressed the shutter. This fired the flash, exposed the performer, and then I kept the shutter open as I slowly panned the camera to the left for two seconds while the performer was in darkness, then I released the shutter. (The panning was to get the flame trails away from the performer into the otherwise empty space of the photo.)

While I suspect this process will need to be fine-tuned for areas that are well lit, I find it gives me the photos I like. I understand others may aim for a different style of photo, in which case, post your technique so we can try it for ourselves.

Posted: 9th Jun 2008
If people have an ook at some light painting techniques than they may figure it out a bit more, hell you could always try to take a photo like 'Centaur' which features picaso drawing a centaur with a torch. if people can work out how that is done than they should be able to take better pictures...

Posted: 9th Jun 2008

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Is that the one? Pretty impressive.

O.B.E.S.E.

Owned by Mynci!

Posted: 9th Jun 2008
Thassa centaur?

Guess I need to bone up on my abstracter art skills....

Nice advice by the way.

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 10th Jun 2008
Yeah if someone can figure out (I already know, and have done copy's) the technique than this should seriously help with fire poi and general poi photography.