Trying something new, smoke.

[vtf]

Lit some incense, used my 50mm 2' from smoke and had ocf directly to right (also used on-camera to trigger ocf). Black backdrop. The originals were weak so I upped the saturation, sharpness and contrast in post and think the final results are nice. What are your opinions (related to the smoke)?
Shutter 200
Aperature 5.0
iso 100
Original Raw

1.

2.

3.

4. Without ocf, just oncamera.

5.

 

[reznap]

EDIT: you just added more... wow #4 is ok and #5 is really nice.

I like 2 and 3. They're pretty solid for smoke shots..

The edit of #1 (second photo) looks really messed up. Like you brought the brightness up really far and it created a bunch of red noise in the background. You can fix this with a hue/saturation adjustment layer.. set it to the red channel and pull the luminosity slider down to like 0.

Anyway, I started to do just that but got carried away and added a gradient (on a separate layer, blend as 'color'). Then I rotated and mirrored it... always wanted to try this.

Higher resolution link: http://i.imgur.com/fQg8h.jpg

Should have adjusted the first one with 'levels' to have better control over the luminosity.

 

[Stradawhovious]

#5 is my favorite....... hands down.
Err..... actually #6. Its confusing.... 6 pics, only numbered to 5.

But yes, the LAST one is my favorite.

 

[vtf]

Reznap,
I did go into levels but didn't like the blue bleed. Heres the original edit of #1
Thanks for the replies guys.

 

[thierry]

Last one is nice!

 

[Bram]

Some of them look a little soft. The second last one could have been really cool if it was a little sharper. I love the sideways edit Reznap did. Wondering how you did that Rez.

 

[billy.the.kid43]

I agree #5, the last one, is freaking sweet. I also like #4, second to last, and I don't think the slightly out of focus look to it is detracting from it. Smoke is a fleeting thing and as such it looks good in focus as well as a little out of focus.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[vtf]

Thanks all,
I'm working on the sharpness. This is definitely work in progress and hope to have some new ones soon.

 

[Ryan L]

When I have tried smoke shots, I didnt like the look of the flash straight on. I used my flash at a 90 degree angle from my camera, so I was only lighting from one side, then I flagged the flash so I didn't get flare. It seemed to work much better for me.