Forums > Help! > How to take spinning pictures

Posted: 6th Nov 2009
Best to start with ISO around 200. Leave the EV at 0. Set your shutter speed between 2-4 seconds. Aperture will depend on ambient light, so just trial and error is about all you do till you get the feel for it.

Set your flash to second curtain, then you should end up with some nice trails and still freeze the subject, or if you just want the trails then obviously you would leave the flash off.


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Posted: 7th Nov 2009
Thanks, You`ve helped me alot, also it doesn`t work with my Flash. Maybe because I can`t find the settings for the shutter speed. And I don`t know what EV means?

Posted: 7th Nov 2009
The flash has to be set to second curtain, not sure what kind of camera you have, it may not have that option.

EV is exposure value, best just to leave that at 0.

If you can set your flash to second curtain but the person your shooting still comes out blurry you might drop the ISO to 100 and go from there. The more light you have reflecting off the person during the 2-4 seconds your just capturing the poi trails the more blurry they will be. Dropping the ISO will make it less sensitive to that light but should still pick up the poi nicely with the right shutter and aperture settings.

Kinda hard to tell exactly what the problem is, maybe you could upload one of your pictures so I can see what it is not coming out right.

Posted: 8th Nov 2009
Saying 2-4 seconds is too generic - you want the subject to maintain a constant speed, then you need to set the camera to take a picture for the duration of one cycle of the move.

Otherwise, you'll just end up with far too many lines everywhere.

Posted: 8th Nov 2009
True, but if your at a performance or an event you don't always have the chance to ask your favorite spinner to pose for you. Now if you do get that chance then by all means take it. But if not it's best to start off generic for now.

I'm assuming here reload doesn't have a lot of experience shooting in the dark. So start simple, go one step at a time. Learn how your camera reacts to light, how to capture those trails and still get a clean subject. Then the fun part comes in, bulb shooting, and subjects in motion. Once you get the hang of bulb shooting you won't even need timed shutter if they are posing for you. But that's a whole nother can of worms.

Posted: 8th Nov 2009
Thanks for all your answers. It`s true that I don`t have any experiences in taking pictures except some photos in holidays. I`ll up you one of my pictures in a few days when I tried more than 10 pics or my friends have taken some pictures of me

Posted: 8th Nov 2009
Query: what about glow poi? I find them a lot dimmer than fire (possibly smaller?).

'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: 8th Nov 2009
Without knowing the kind of settings you're shooting in and what you've tried already it's a bit of guess work. I'd start off either with a wider aperture and a faster shutter, or a wider aperture and lower ISO.

Posted: 9th Nov 2009
besides it really depends on the type of camera you're using...

SLR or regular consumer digi cam... the latter gives you far less options (like no second curtain)...

if you find yourself with a regular consumer camera that gives you little to no options regarding flash (second curtain btw is not necessary, you could flash first and then still expose the trails/ rest of the moves from there - know what I mean???)

so IF you got that odd consumer camera you might WANT to set the EV value to +2 or 3, FORCING the camera to expose longer and giving you the trails that you might not get otherwise...

another technique is the time of the shooting... use the blue hour.. the camera will always loose a significant amount of light in the process... JUST after sunset will give you some stunning results...

and if you win the wallpaper contest along with these tips, remember to credit us

the best smiles are the ones you lead to

Posted: 9th Nov 2009
Heheh.... Will do.

Thanks though.

'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: 9th Nov 2009
Not shooting with a DSLR?!? Blasphemy

Posted: 10th Nov 2009
Personally I always shoot fire pics on "Bulb" setting (i.e. you hold the shutter open as long as your finger is on the shutter button) - usually with a remote trigger.

This way you can accuarately capture precise patterns/moves as you can open the shutter at the start of the pattern and close at the end. For example open the shutter when a staff is thrown, close it when it's caught.

You'll need to fiddle with aperture/ISO settings to ensure you get correct exposures though - you can't take a 20 second exposure and 1/100 exposure on the same settings.

Some compact cameras offer bulb mode - it's worth seeing if you've got it. The remote trigger is a nicety as you can look at the performer with your eyes as opposed to through the viewfinder and also prevents camera shake.

Burner of Toast
Spinner of poi
Slacker of enormous magnitude