Advice needed for shooting in fake fog/smoke

AnimalRights

Our flats community hall asked me to take a few photographs tomorrow night and I ventured down now just for a quick peek, I gotta admit I've not a clue on the best way to photograph in these conditions as I've never encountered them b4!
Here are the few I took, I need any tips and help now!! Note the fake fog...( I could hardly see anything taking these and had to guess)







What would the best lens to use out of what I have?
100mm 2.8 Macro
24-105L (which these were taken with)
50mm 1.4
It's a small venue so doubt these lenses below I could find a use for.
17-40L
70-200L

kensutz

The flash is after showing up the fog/smoke too much. Haven't shot in any of those conditions so can't help too much.

AnimalRights

mmm maybe I should've used my Sto-fen on top of the flash.
Off to work now so will check the thread later.

PopeBuckfastXVI

Can you come off camera and light with a tight beam from an angle, might minimize the amount of fog your light is hitting, provide a cool effect and light the subject at the same time... maybe have a friend hold and point the flash, snooted or zoomed?

Edit: I've not shot in these conditions, just guessing

challengemaster

My guess would be: Don't use flash.

Its like driving in fog - you dont use your headlights because you see more fog.

Try bringing a mini maglite or something and using that to light up some of the fog.

John

Flash is a bad idea. I haven't shot in thick dry ice with a decent camera but I did take some photos of Sunn O))) when they played Whelans using a point and click a few years ago and found that just moving close and not using flash gave the best results. Without flash it's going to look murky but that's the whole point of the dry ice being there in the first place.

With flash:


Without flash:

sunny2004

Have to agree with the above posts, Flash is the last thing you need to be using when it comes to fog !

Fajitas!

Use your 1.4 with no flash, sorted!

ThOnda

No flash, or off camera flash pointed directly to the subject and not lighting the space inbetween camera and the subject.

Alun

ThOnda wrote: »

No flash, or off camera flash pointed directly to the subject and not lighting the space in between camera and the subject.

That's what I was thinking too .. try and get someone to either hold an off camera flash or maybe some other kind of lighting up close to the subject itself, and shoot "through" the fog, as it were. I've no idea if it would work, but it seems like it should.

0utpost31

No flash UNLESS the fog disperses a good bit. So bring your flash!

If you look at my flickr link there in my sig you'll see some smokey shots I took recently - lasers and smoke which is really fun to shoot! Anyway I used a flash to illuminate the disco ball in some shots like this. It gave it a bit of a sparkle.






I had to wait for the smoke to disperse enough and then I could fire off a few flashes without getting that grey illuminated foggy look, then they'd pump out the smoke again and I'd stop using the flash. So it can be used, but it depends how much smoke is hangin around.

What will you be taking pics of? Kids dippin for apples n' shiat? Or static objects...

Tactical

Either better lighting of the subject, close up so as to illuminate as little of the "fog" as possible, or a reduced power off-camera flash possibly with something like black cardboard barn doors to reduce ubnwanted spread from the unit (experiment with flash power too).

Tough one, guess most shots are gonna look a little soft but not a lot can be done about that given the conditions.

smelltheglove

I'd have to agree, no flash, I have never ever used a gig shot that had the fog at the same time.... Never! They never work well so if you have a good fast lense that you can use without flash then go for that option by all means.

eas

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that using creative flash technique would be how to make the most of this.

Two or more off camera flashes would be super for this. Think about it, horror movies aren't shot without elaborate lighting set ups.