Digital Flames

Hey, everyone. I'm new to the forums here, but I'm only a little bit new to photography. I'm reluctantly going into digital photography, stemming from my 35 MM camera that I've been using since my photography class last year. My digital camera makes me very happy, but it just kind of made me want to beat it a minute ago. I thought it'd be cool to do some candle shots, lit of course. So, I take a few pictures and where the flame is supposed to be, a white circle/oval is in place. My question to you fellow photographers is, how can I actually get my camera to show the flame and not the white circle/oval? Thanks in advanced!

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I can upload an example if needed.

P.P.S.
Sorry if this is in the wrong board. I didn't realize there were more than what I saw before I joined. XD

Another opition for you might be to add in a digital frame in photoshop. I've never used a digital camera that had built in frames so I'm not 100% clear what you are talking about.

Welcome to the Forum. A sample pic would be nice to get a better idea of what you're talking about, but it sounds to me like you are over exposing the image. Try setting your exposure compensation to -1 or -2 and see what you get.

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Originally Posted by method_X_acting

Hey, everyone. I'm new to the forums here, but I'm only a little bit new to photography. I'm reluctantly going into digital photography, stemming from my 35 MM camera that I've been using since my photography class last year. My digital camera makes me very happy, but it just kind of made me want to beat it a minute ago. I thought it'd be cool to do some candle shots, lit of course. So, I take a few pictures and where the flame is supposed to be, a white circle/oval is in place. My question to you fellow photographers is, how can I actually get my camera to show the flame and not the white circle/oval? Thanks in advanced!

P.S.
I can upload an example if needed.

P.P.S.
Sorry if this is in the wrong board. I didn't realize there were more than what I saw before I joined. XD

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Digital is more like shooting slides than print film. Slides and digital both require a lot of attention to the details, print film covers up lots of mistakes.

It sounds as if you grossly overexposed the photo. The darkness of the room fooled the meter. Either determine the exposure without the meter, use a gray card, or switch to manual mode and change the shutter speed until you get the exposure you are looking for. With digital, you are never wasting money by testing! Also, start thinking about exposure rather than counting on a meter to get it right.

Let us know what happens!

Candle 1

Candle -1 Exposure Thing

Candle -2 Exposure Thing

I'm thinking my camera just doesn't like to take pictures of flames. It's not a big advanced type of digital camera. It's an Argus QuickClix 5150.

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Originally Posted by BMWJNKY

Another opition for you might be to add in a digital frame i

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fLame not fRame !

I would guess it's overexposed, and possibly wide open.

It looks as if your camera is totally fooled by a little point of light in a dark room and gets the exposure wrong :(

Do you have mannual control over the shutter speed and aperture?
Google didn't find the manual for the camera online.

Hi and welcome - you're in the right place! I think there are a couple of things going on here. First off, you're using a slow shutter speed and it looks like you're holding the camera in your hands because I see some movement. That slight blur of the flame is making the problem worse by "spreading out" the flame in the image. Also, I'm guessing that -2 is still not enough exposure compensation for this shot. The flame is a tiny part of the overall image, and most modern metering systems tend to ignore one small bright spot in the shot and put more emphasis on the background.

I remember seeing a shot in a Nikon catalog where a small room was lit by a bare light bulb. I'm guessing it was a fairly low wattage bulb, and their point was exactly this - their metering system ignored the bulb and exposed for the background. You may need -4 or -6 exposure compensation for this shot, and very few cameras can do this unless you're in a manual exposure mode.

Try supporting the camera or putting it on a tripod. Make the flame a bigger part of the image. If you have manual mode on your camera, use the widest aperture you have and experiment with shutter speeds. You'll either have the flame exposed about like your eye sees it, or you'll have some exposure in the background - but not both due to the way the camera sees things.

I'm going to preach about spot meters again here... If it were me, I'd use a spot meter and set my exposure at about +1.5 over what the meter was reading. Actually I'd bracket at +1 and +1-1/2, or +1, +1-1/3 and +1-2/3 depending on what the camera offered, just to be sure I had it right. I've never done this before, so I'm not sure which setting is best. I'm going to guess that you don't have a spot meter, but they really are great tools when wierd conditions come up.

Im not sure about your camera, but with my Nikons I have always been able to change the metering to be spot only, point the camera at the point I want to meter, and slightly depress the shutter, and then move the camera to frame how I want, then shoot.. thus exposing for a "specific spot" - it does need to be set up right to do this

In the world of digital,and long tripod exposures, one could always use the same technique, but take the picture, metering on the said spot, record the Fsettings and Shutter speed, pop the camera on manual, re-set the shot up in the corct framing position and press the shutter button, giving you a perfectly exposed shot. (Did i mention braketing?)

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Originally Posted by SmartWombat

fLame not fRame !

I would guess it's overexposed, and possibly wide open.

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My bad, I was running on 3 hours sleep yesterday.

Hey, again. Sorry I haven't responded much; I've been a bit busy. Anyway, a friend of mine said to use backlighting with the candle. I haven't tried it as the day I wanted to use candles in a "photoshoot" (if you will) with a few friends and that passed ending in about 2 good picture, but I won't go into details. My camera doesn't have like half of the settings being talked about. Then again, I don't understand fully half of the settings talked about. Thank you, horrible photography teacher.

If your camera has full manual control, you can do what I talked about. There's a good chance that your digital camera doesn't do this, but if you used your 35mm camera for class then it probably does.

The +1 and +1-1/2, etc relates to the exposure that you use based on your meter reading. For example, if the meter reads 1/30 at f5.6 (just pulling numbers out of thin air for example), then +1 would either be 1/15 at f5.6, 1/30 at f4 or any other combination that's one stop more exposure than the meter tells you to use.

The reason that you wouldn't use the setting that the meter tells you to use is that in-camera light meters can easily be fooled by difficult lighting situations. Knowing how the meter works can help you understand when it can give you a false reading (actually the meter is working fine, just not giving you the info you want) and how to compensate for it.

Some cameras can put in the +1 or whatever exposure compensation automatically, but it's not necessary to have this to use this idea. Actually, it's better to do it manually a lot of times so that you think about what you're doing. Having a lot of stuff programmed into the camera can lead to confusion from all the stuff that's happening (at least in my case!).

I would take a very different approach....as usual, eh?

I would expose for the candlelight in the room without having the candle in the viewfinder. Then use exposure lock and shoot your shot with the candle...Shot 1

Then I would move in close and using the camera meter expose for the candle flame alone. Use exposure lock again. Back off and take the picture ...Shot 2

Then using Photoshop I would transfer the flame from Shot 2...correctly exposed...to replace the overexposed flame in Shot 1.

The result would be the best of both worlds...no overexposed flame and no underexposed room.

Ronnoco