With a Joyful Noise: Playing with Fire (Shutter Speed)

I know, I know... "Don't play with fire." But...I've gotta admit, I had a ton of fun playing with fire the other night. Don't worry, I kept my distance!

For those of you who aren't interested in all the technical details of shutter speed, ISO, and f-stop (aperture), I'll start you off with one of my favorite pictures of the night (it really was hard to choose!).

ISO 800 | Shutter Speed 1/4000 | f-stop 2.8 (IMG_3383)

There are three important elements in shooting with DSLR cameras: ISO, shutter speed, and aperture (f-stop). I don't have these mastered, but I have fun playing with them.

One night, we had a fire going and I decided to play around with shutter speed (aka Mom called me outside to take some pictures because something in the fire looked neat and I got distracted -- like 137-pictures-later-distracted).

The best teacher, for me, is example. So I will just post some of the pictures that I took and give you the details at which settings they were taken. A quick observation: the slower the shutter speed (as in 1/30), the more "blurred" the flames were. The faster the shutter speed (as in 1/4000), the more translucent and "separated" the flames were.

(ALL IMAGES ARE COMPLETELY UNEDITED - I just changed them from RAW format to JPEG and added my watermark)

ISO 800 | f-stop 2.8
800 is the highest ISO I chose (the general rule for ISO is "the darker the lighting, the higher the ISO" - but here I was dealing with bright fire in dark night). I swapped between using f-stop 2.8 and 5.0 but will keep those pictures separated.

ISO 800 | Shutter Speed 1/160 | f-stop 2.8 (IMG_3379)

ISO 800 | Shutter Speed 1/800 | f-stop 2.8 (IMG_3382)

ISO 800 | Shutter Speed 1/1000 | f-stop 2.8 (IMG_3381)

ISO 800 | Shutter Speed 1/4000 | f-stop 2.8 (IMG_3383)

ISO 800 | f-stop 5.0

ISO 800 | Shutter Speed 1/2000 | f-stop 5.0 (IMG_3415)

I'll admit, I got hung up a how cool (ha!) the flames looked with the super fast shutter speed of 1/4000...

ISO 800 | Shutter Speed 1/4000 | f-stop 2.8 (IMG_3416)

ISO 800 | Shutter Speed 1/4000 | f-stop 2.8 (IMG_341)

ISO 800 | Shutter Speed 1/4000 | f-stop 2.8 (IMG_3420)

ISO 100 | f-stop 5.0
And the lowest ISO I played with: 100.
These are listed in order from slowest shutter speed to fastest.

ISO 100 | Shutter Speed 1/10 | f-stop 5.0 (IMG_3399)

ISO 100 | Shutter Speed 1/25 | f-stop 5.0 (IMG_3390)

ISO 100 | Shutter Speed 1/25 | f-stop 5.0 (IMG_3403)

ISO 100 | Shutter Speed 1/60| f-stop 5.0 (IMG_3404)

ISO 100 | Shutter Speed 1/400 | f-stop 5.0 (IMG_3405)

ISO 100 | Shutter Speed 1/800 | f-stop 5.0 (IMG_3385)

ISO 100 | Shutter Speed 1/1000 | f-stop 5.0 (IMG_3406)

ISO 100 | Shutter Speed 1/4000 | f-stop 5.0 (IMG_3408)

ISO 200 | f-stop 5.0
And here is where I had to really work through my pictures. ISO 200 is where I settled and took the most shots. Hence, I had to narrow down which ones I was going to post. :) As in, my first "narrowing down" left 31 pictures.

I'll start with one angle and the different shutter speeds I used (slowest to fastest).