Branching Out

It's felt good to have the camera in my hands almost every day this week after shooting only 9 times since Florida (February 28, 2011). One thing I want to try if this trend continues is getting out of my comfort zone and shooting other things such as landscapes, wildlife, architecture, etc. on nice days instead of being track side all the time. Of course I will still want to cross things off my railroad to-shoot-list but a decent mix would be nice.

We had a fire going last night to burn some old wood (from a willow tree we cut down more than 10 years ago) since we've had to cut down a few trees around the house this spring. While watching, I got the itch to shoot and attempt to catch the flames (and also learn how to in the process). I ran and got my camera and guessed at the settings for the seemingly bright fire, WRONG! Not only was I too dark but my shutter speed was too slow to stop action. When watching it you don't notice how fast fire actually moves. Dark logs = needs more exposure. Bright flame = less exposure. That means flash was going to be needed. I didn't get the external so I just used the on-camera flash for fill light only for the sake of time. This time a much better result.

1/250 @ f/5, ISO 1600

Even in the 5 minutes I spent shooting the fireplace I actually learned a lot:
- fire is fast a fast shutter speed is needed to freeze (ha!) it
- an external flash is optimal to shoot faster than the 1/250 the pop-up allows
- a controlled light source is important
- sometimes you should just give up after the first shot (the next dozen shots were all rejects)
- pay attention to settings that work
- what our eyes see isn't always what is captured on 'film' (see photo below)
- fire is HOT

1/250 @ f/8, ISO 800

I was seeing a flame like the one in the first photo but I had changed my settings and focal length changing how the camera was catching the flame. It became almost transparent and floating rather than full and engulfing the wood.

Lucky for me there is a nearly endless supply of firewood in the backyard to get more practice.