Flutterby™! : Firefall Pix 2001-05-04 17:02:42+00

Firefall Pix

2001-05-04 17:02:42+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments

Yes, Flutterby is becoming graphics heavy. Kiki graciously ran the Firefall last night. Bob Mackey got into this great pattern of watching for the fuel bubbles to appear on the surface and grabbing them just as they ignited. This resulted in some pretty good pictures, despite the fact that I was shooting with the Canon S100 which has a huge lag between shutter press and image acquisition. Next time I find someone who's willing to play that seriously for the picture I've gotta have my film cameras along, and some fast tungsten balanced film.

Try pressing the shutter button about 75% of the way in and hold it there before you are ready to snap the shot. That causes the camera to adjust for light levels and white balance. You can then press it the rest of the way and snap the picture instantly. That's how I managed to get some of my better action shots on the Ultimate field.

Aha! I had just been pressing the shutter when he grabbed and trying to track his hands. Much better idea.

I need to figure a good way to filter out the carbon yellow without completely blowing the rest of the light, 'cause catching the blue wisps that make the firefall so tremendously cool in person is just about impossible (in fact, I deleted a bunch of images where the flash completely blew out the fire and it just looked like someone holding their hands in the water).

This post reminded me... thanks for the info a few weeks back about your S100. I got my S300 a couple of days ago (just in time for the trip!) and so far, it's great!

Lemme know what you learn about the lighting. I still haven't RTFM so I end up with alot of crap. At least I don't have to pay developing.

Lighting wise we found that Bob's shirt reflected too much light if he was turned toward me, which is why all the shots have him facing sideways or away from me. One of the reasons for the film cameras would be that I'd have flash exposure lock and be able to meter the scene independently, so I could account for some of that (although to do it justice I'd have to have two or three flashes). Although perhaps the fire was bright enough that just playing with the exposure compensation would be sufficient (wish the S100 had controls like the EOS-3 or EOS-5, but that'd kinda defeat that "small and easy" purpose).