Capturing vapor/steam rising off drinks

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I have a two head, 700 w/s kit with white & silver umbrellas. I'd

like to take some photographs of people holding coffee cups that

catches the mirage look of the steam & vapor rising out of the cup.

I'm also interested in photographing cigarette smoke like <a

href="http://www.photo.net/photo/2002709">Ehsan does

in this photograph</a>. I'm assuming this is done with a combination

of high speed (my medium format camera can sync at any speed) and

correct lighting angle.</p>

<p>I'm on a particularly harsh budget for the next few months, so I'm

hesitant to experiment without some guidelines, but particularly need

to try new things for the same reason. </p>

Amul,

*I'm assuming this is done with a combination of high speed (my medium format camera can sync at any speed) and correct lighting angle.*

I'm assuming that it was done with a lot of help from PS. The standard means of accentuating vapour/smoke is to backlight it as far as possible. Use a honeycomb grid (or ideally a spotlight) from behind/side, precisely positioned to pick up just the smoke.

The shutter speed on your camera is all but irrelevant.

Hope this helps

Harsh spot or gird controlled light only on the smoke will accent it due to the higher contrast lighting.

Coffee smoke? a teaspoon of dry ice into the hot liquid just before firing the shutter.

Garry: Isn't is amazing to the PS crowd how we could do all these with just lighting? (and experience)

Garry: I'm assuming that in order to get a nice static-form vapor line, I'll need to photograph it faster than the particles are moving. Cigarette smoke, for example, looks fairly slow (say, slower than children at play) but wasn't sure about the coffee mist.

Danny: Thank you, yes. I want to do this in-camera. I don't have a grid, and I'd imagine a snoot would be less expensive.

Amul,

A snoot wil work, and can produce similar results, but less easily. The problem with using a snoot is that although the size of the light is reduced it's spread isn't. If the light source is placed more or less facing towards the camera then some light is likely to strike the lens, causing flare and ruining the shot. A honeycomb (grid) channels the light into more or less straight lines, which controls flare unless it is pointing more or less directly at the camera.

Snoots are cheap but you could make one out of cinefoil or even stiff black paper - but if using one made of paper be aware of the fire risk and don't leave the modelling lamp on!

I take your point about the need to 'freeze' the movement of the vapour/smoke, but this is done by the flash. Under normal studio conditions a 'normal' shutter speed is too short for any existing light to effect the shot, so you don't actually need a shutter that will synch at any speed.

Hope this helps.

Danny,

I think PS is a wonderful tool for photographers, but I think it's a pity that there now seems to be a generation of people who think that it can replace skill, knowledge and care. Personally I don't see the point of spending hours getting eyestrain when a few seconds of thought and a bit of care could get the required result in camera.

But maybe I'm just prejudiced, as a commercial photographer who has far too much work, I HAVE to minimise wasted time.

Garry:

I know, I have never done any post production work, client gets the 45 or 810 trannie and then it is off to the seperation.

It is like my nephew who owns a few frontier lab complain that the file coming in are getting worse due to no care in initial exposure and then butchering by PS.