Ok so I have a question about getting a shot when people are using sparklers. I have never tried this before but don't want to be faced with a situation where I HAVE to get the shot!
I'm sure ya'll have seen pictures where someone is writing something with a sparkler or making a shape and you can make out the entire shape of whatever they are making. This is slow shutter speed, obviously, but what would you stop down to? Around 1/4 second?

Also, do you use a high ISO outside at night? would that make the picture too bright?

I have also seen that flash is used to illuminate the faces of the people. But doesn't flash drown out the sparklers?

AND what lens would you use? I would guess a 50 1.4 or 1.2?

I'm a little confused as to how this works!

Someone help please! I would love to know how to do this!
Thanks you guys! As always, OSP totally rocks

You could pop and drag. You could also use a combination of highish ISO (on a D2X that's like 500-640) and slow shutter speed with an on-camera flash. Off-camera flash on a cord would give you more freedom to point the speedlight at the couple...

I just saw a cute image like that on Scsarlett's blog. You should email her and ask her.

had a wedding on saturday with AMAAAAAAAZING sparklers... i didn't flash and mikey did. we both preferred the sans flash look... but those sparklers put out a LOT of light, NEVER have i seen anything like it!

Hey Bobbi! How do you do it without flash? Just crank the ISO up and shutter speed down? I am guessing you are going to use a tripod too, to avoid camera shake. Or did you use IS?

Jill, I saw the image! Pretty cool! I just figured I would post here about it too just in case it might help someone else with the same question

Ok, so i'm kind of a rookie in the whole photog lingo What does "drag and pop" mean? LOL!

Here's a link:

Dragging the Shutter (from Neil van Niekerk's site)

I shot mine with the 24 1.4 wide open at 1600 ISO. No tripod.

bobbi- do you have the image processed yet that you can post? I'd love to see how it turned out (and maybe also what Mike's version looked like with flash).

Lauren,

Did you check the archives?

http://www.opensourcephoto.net/forum/index...showtopic=19338

http://www.opensourcephoto.net/forum/index...showtopic=14907

Yeah, what Bobbi said......

The brighter you want the sparklers, the more you want the ambient light (slower shutter), the more "defined" you want the sparklers, the higher the aperture. So mess around with it some - buy a box of sparklers, put one in the ground, light it & shoot it 3-50 ways. MY default for that would be something like 1/40, F8, ISO 640 with Manual flash on about 1/4 power - and I'd go from there with my adjustments. That will give you defined flash (F8) but a lot of light (1/40, ISO 640, and obviously fill on the couple (flash). Obviously "a lot of light" depends on the situation and that's where adjustments come in....

Hey Matt! No I didn't check, but next time I will try to find a post before posting a new topic. Thanks!

Matt and Nate! Thanks so much for the examples. I think I am beginning to get the idea. High ISO, aperture wide open, slow shutter speed. I also do not like to use flash unless I have to. I have noticed that alot in my work.

I wasn't trying to be mean... just wanted to show you some previous examples. There is a TON of info in the archives.

Oh no I didn't take it that way at all I really do appreciate you posting those links for me, that way if someone else might have the same question later it will be there for them too! Thanks!

Mikey just told me he shot his with the 24-70, 2.8, 1/30th of a second, 1000 ISO. Don't have them processed yet... but will soon. He said it was just enough to catch the sparklers without having hot spots/too much motion. There's Mikey's 2¢ He should really get his own login here.

And nope... it's not been processed yet I'll show it when I do though.

~B

If they're moving through fast, I'd definitely do the pop and drag so you don't get a big motion blur... I use flash with a slower shutter with a lot of dance shots also.

The one time I shot a nighttime recessional under sparklers, I used the 35/1.4 at f/1.4, 1/80th, ISO 3200. Worked like a champ!

No flash or dragged shutter looks best. Without flash the sparklers are really able to be bright and full. I have a shot on my website that I did 1600 iso at 1.2. It worked out great because the sparklers were so bright.

-danielle

I shot this one going for a 'cleaner' look. F/4 1/40th sec 800 ISO at 17 mm with flash set to TTL/BL
(D200)



This is straight OOC JPG, unprocessed.

This was my first attempt at sparklers, but I practiced by shooting the kids and people who were lighting them waiting for the couple. That was enough for me to see that the same drag the shutter settings I was using for the rest of the reception were good.

~rc

Has anyone drawn letters with sparklers? I tried this the other day, and it sort of worked, but was a little tricky. I got one set of inititials, but not the other.

For some reason, I end up doing a lot of these any time there is a couple with sparklers. They see an image in one of sample books and want to do the same thing, so here are a few. The first (with the heart and the H) was done at ISO 800 f/8 at a 1 second exposure. There was a lot of light in the parking lot, so I was trying to minimize that with the aperture setting. The second (where you can see the bridesmaids) was shot at ISO 640 f/4.5 at a 1.6 second exposure. This was in almost pitch black.

And the last one is probably one of my very favorite sparkler shots! ISO 1250 f/4.5 at 1/15 sec. I had my flash fired off-camera with a pocket wizard behind them, held by my wonderful assistant. I usually place someone in the middle of the line to pop my flash behind the couple for a little fun. Then my second shoother, I have shoot with diffused flash on camera. This way we get both, but I love this shot. :)And this is probably one of my very favorite sparkler shots! ISO 1250 f/4.5 at 1/15 sec. I had my flash fired off-camera with a pocket wizard behind them, held by my wonderful assistant. I usually place someone in the middle of the line to pop my flash behind the couple for a little fun. Then my second shoother, I have shoot with diffused flash on camera. This way we get both, but I love this shot.

So cute. I love it! I just added some sparkler pictures to the favorites gallery onmy website

Love the examples! I suggested sparklers to my brother for his wedding a couple years ago, but found out they are illegal in Arizona. Isn't that crazy?

so then (not to thread jack) what do you do when they get the kind of sparkers that put off more smoke than light?? the last wedding i did with sparklers was like that, and i ended up with mostly smoke ... icky.

You guys are awesome! Thank you for being so forthcoming with the information! So do you meter for the sparklers or for the surrounding darkness?Also, do you just tell the people holding the sparklers to keep making the shape over and over while the camera is taking the picture or should they only do it one time? Sorry I know that might be a dumb question but I want to make sure I do this right if I ever get a chance to! :)Ok one more thing, I noticed that most people are using a smaller aperture than what I would think I would need. I would think you would have to shoot wide open with like a 1.4 in that kind of darkness. Why the smaller aperture?

When you are trying to write things with sparklers, you need the long shutter speed, but the larger aperture gives you more light which just results in a very bright image without a lot of definition to the sparklers. So in order to allow the time needed to draw letters or images, you need to use a smaller aperture to balance the image properly. If you wanted to, suppose you could adjust your ISO, but I find 800 works pretty well for writing. A higher ISO works well for the actual couple shot.

Each situation calls for something different. I've got additional light in the shot with the couple, so a 4.5 works well for that. If you're shooting light from the sparklers only or dragging the shutter, you would want to shoot wide open. I would practice with some friends to find what gets the look YOU want.

When someone is writing something, they do it one time and very precisely, so the movements are fairly robotic. If you do the outline more than once, it may not line up and then it just sort of looks funny. So, keep lots of sparklers on hand and you can get a good 5-6 images with one sparkler lit. Just explain exactly what you want to those who are holding the sparklers. I usually tell them to not write lower than the waist or higher than their head if I'm doing several letters at once, and I get people of similar height so it's straight.

I hope that helps!

Awesome! Thank you. That makes sense about the aperture/shutter speed. I totally blew out some shots - I couldn't connect that detail

Yes- I was totally shocked when I had a bride a few months back get married at the Castle here in AZ and they had these gigantic sparklers- come to find out- her family brought them from Mexico......I was a little nervous- just because I did not want anyone to get hurt- they were giant!

Backlight the smoke.

Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who posted! I have said it before and will say it again, OSP totally rocks!

I hate they they are also illegal here in California. We have some stupid laws, considering that they are no more dangerous than incense, which is totally legal.

I promised that I would show you my sparker shot with my 24, no flash

great shot Bobbi, that is amazing that it is no flash, too bad that guy on the left didn't have a sparkler in his hand instead of a beer. (come on guy)

I hope I am not to late for this! There are two different kind of shots you are talking about here, and I want to address the problem you might face.
1. The letters.... it is ok to drag the shutter on these and pop the flash to freeze the subject, or not flash to see only the letters. Just make sure no one else flashes while you are doing this shot... see my reason below.

2. The running out of the church through the sparklers.... If you drag the shutter and pop the flash, you could run into major trouble like I did once. My assistant and I went out during the recieving line, and practiced a few shots. We thought we had our settings right. But, here was the problem... I dragged the shutter, and poped the flash to freeze the subject. But, guess what? There was another flash that went off during my shutter drag and froze the subject also. So, I ended up with two bride and grooms on the image. It totally ruined the shot. Luckily my assistant got one that was acceptable. So, I would CRANK up the ISO, and use as low of aperture as you can and not use flash on this type of shot.

Hey Bobbi! I am assuming you cranked your ISO way up, but with a higher aperture, you would have to slow the shutter speed down too so it wouldn't be underexposed. So how do you get the slow shutter speed without the subject being blurred from movement, and not use flash? Sorry! I am just kind of confused. Is that why you take your ISO way up?