Night Fires

[grubber33270]

As Most of you have probably seen from my Photos of night fires I really could use some help. I have a Cannon EOS Rebel XTI. and I love going to fires and all, but for the life of me cannot get the same great quality photos as most of you. I have seen photos where you can literally count the eyebrow hair on  a firefighter even when he is wearing his mask, its insane. Well anyway back to the question. what are the best settings for night fires I know it varies by how much light there is on the scene, but lets start out with at the beginning when there is not much for scene lights set up or street lights around. what would be the best settings to go with.  Every now and then I get lucky but I just returned from a fire I took like 75 photos, I deleted about 50 of them, it was that bad. any help is appreciated thanks.

[edburke]

Lots of variables here.  What type lens are you using, specifically, what is the minimum aperture or aperture range?  Are you using a flash or going for available light?  Are you using manual settings or letting the camera make the decisions for you?

[grubber33270]

I would be using Available Light in Manual Mode. I have always been told never use Auto mode for apparatus or fires? is this something I should try?

[sparky]

I hope I can offer some helpful advice. You are really limited by only using available light. If you can try to get an external flash. There is a big difference in what your eye thinks is enough light and what the camera captures. How much light is captured by the camera is dependant on 3 things: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. Go out and experiment at night with different settings, don't worry about your subjects, you are interested in seeing how the different settings produce different results. Some people use tripods or monopods at night. The idea is to provide a stable platform to shoot at lower shutter speeds. Brace yourself against a pole or tree to reduce camera shake if you don't have/ or want to use a tri or monopod. This is just a few thoughts to get you started, ask some more questions if you have them! Good luck!

[firesafe91]

Josh - What lenses are you using?

[grubber33270]

For Lens I use cannon EFS 18-55 MM , or my 75-300MM and I also have a 35-80mm lens. But most of the time its the first too I use

 

I also just did Purchase a Mono, have used it once, I like it a lot better then the tripods. but seriously some of you guys post fires like the bat light is right behind you aiming at the structure. I am not a professional nor am I trying to be. just like to get my photography skills a little better. thanks

[edburke]

Josh, what I asked above about aperture ranges is the big thing here.  The EF-S 18-55 has a range of 3.5 at the wide end to 5.6 at the zoom end.  This will most likely require a tripod with a remote release, as you're gonna be pretty close to 1 second or greater exposures to get anything decent with available light.  The best EF-S lens for this that I can find is this one:  http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/42..._8_IS.html but it's still gonna require 1/20 or 1/10 second exposures.

 

The rule is:  the longer the shutter is open, the more light the camera can grab.  of course, when it comes to camera shake, the shorter the time the shutter is open, the less shake you get.  By having relatively small apertures (large openings), you can reduce the amount of time necessary to get the light into the camera.

 

Experimentation is key.  I use two different $2000 lenses to get my available light stuff.

[grubber33270]

I usually have my aperature set at 1/10 or so depending on how much light, my ISO I usually bring to 1600 the highest my camera will allow. I usually Take a few photos walking up. then just keep checking on them.  

[firesafe91]

I agree with what Ed stated. Since your camera has a max ISO setting of 1600 and your lenses don't have a particularly fast apertures,  you will need to use a tripod to get a higher percentage of properly exposed and reasonably sharp photos at night.

 

I'm fortunate that I can shoot at ISO 6400 and have a couple of f/2.8 lenses. Even with this gear I still get a lot of crappy shots - especially if I am shooting a slow shutter speed at f/2.8. Ideally I like to find an ISO setting and shutter speed that allows me to shoot at f/8 to maintain sharpness.

 

I also use cameras with full-frame sensors compared to your camera's crop sensor. Full-frame cameras generally produce images with lower noise in low light situations due to the larger pixels associated with the sensor. 

 

Like Ed stated, just keep experimenting (and hope that the scene lights on the rigs are set-up). Your gear is capable of delivering some great photos. 

[grubber33270]

What should my F setting be at? I might go out here in a bit and just experiment with it.

[firesafe91]

What should my F setting be at? I might go out here in a bit and just experiment with it.

My recommendation for night shooting is to use your 18-55mm and shoot wide open (f/3.5) at 35mm. Zoom with your feet. When you zoom the lens to 55mm you will be shooting at f/5.6 which means you will be losing quite a bit of light.


Check out this primer on aperture settings. Moving from f/3.5 to f/5.6 doesn't seem like a lot, but it makes a big difference.

<a class="bbc_url" href='http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Resource-Articles/Lens-Aperture/pcmcat208400050008.c?id=pcmcat208400050008'>http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Resource-Articles/Lens-Aperture/pcmcat208400050008.c?id=pcmcat208400050008</a>


If you have a polarizer filter for shooting rigs, take it off as this also can result in a loss of light.

[grubber33270]

the Flash I do have is just a pop up one on my camera should I use it or is that not a good thing to use on Fire scenes? thanks

 

Scott I remember you sawing for the large fire in Minneapolis you had your flash pointing up for that one. Is that something I should look into? thanks for all the advice

[firesafe91]

the Flash I do have is just a pop up one on my camera should I use it or is that not a good thing to use on Fire scenes? thanks

 

Scott I remember you sawing for the large fire in Minneapolis you had your flash pointing up for that one. Is that something I should look into? thanks for all the advice

 

Josh,

 

You will have to play around with the pop-up flash to see what it will do for your style of photography. 

 

I will sometimes place diffuser on one of my SB-700 flash units and position the flash head straight up into the air in order to fill the shadows. See the attached photos as an example. Both shots were taken at a house fire on Humboldt Avenue last November.

 

The camera settings were:

 

ISO 6400

1/160 second

f/2.8

-0.3 exposure dialed in on the flash with the diffuser in place

 

Hope this helps.

 

Scott

[firesafe91]

Here's another. Same settings.

[Aaronw]

I've got a Canon T1i and the 18-55mm EF-S kit lens or an older Tamron 28-200mm without an external flash so we are using similar equipment.

 

I have a long way to go with night stuff (well day stuff too actually   ) but something else to consider is your photo contents (composition is the technical term I believe), it is somewhat limiting but if you zoom in (either on camera or with your feet) so that the scene you are capturing is better lit and even vs 1/2 in light 1/2 in shadow it can help make up for your camera / lens / skill combo. So rather than getting a shot of the whole house with fire coming out a window, you might have to go for the close up of fire coming out of the window.

 

Obviously this isn't a solution to the whole problem, but it helps morale as you will get more good shots in the mix. We have limited ability due to skill and equipment so anything helps.

 

 

 

You also might try playing with one of the in between semi auto modes with aperture priority or shutter speed priority which will allow you to experiment with just part of the equation and allows the camera to do the rest on its own. I find this helps as I'm often overwhelmed trying to deal with the full manual settings while on the fire ground.