Introduction: Basic Steel Wool Photography

By Orion&Ponchi Maker
About: Beginner maker who loves stargazing.

Hello again! Everyone loves to play with fire. So let's try another amazing thing you can do with fire!!!

P.S.This trick is quite safe, but always be careful when you play with fire!!!

Step 1: Things You Need and Place You Want

Material&Tools

  1. A Lot Of Fine Steel Wool (Grade 0 or below)
  2. Stainless Steel Whisk
  3. Lighter
  4. Rope
  5. Glove (To Protect Your Hand)
  6. Safety Glasses (Strongly Suggest Because Our Eyes Are Sensitive)

You should have spare steel wool, stainless steel whisk, lighter, and rope.

Camera Equipment

  1. Camera That Has Manual Mode
  2. Tripod
  3. Wide Angle Lens (Optional)

***Use Protective Filter To Protect Your Lens***

Place

Large Area Without Flammable Substances

Examples: Beaches, Abandoned Buildings

Step 2: Make Your Flamethrower

Attach rope to stainless steel whisk.

Step 3: Prepare Your Fuel

Loosen your steel wool.

Step 4: Reload!

Put your steel wool into stainless steel whisk.

Step 5: Setting

  1. Find your ideal location and wait for a nice time. (My suggestions are dawn and twilight since you will get gorgeous sky in your pictures)
  2. Set your camera to manual mode and manual focus then place it on a tripod and compose the image.
  3. Set up your camera
    • Shutter speed around 8 seconds
    • Aperture around f8-f11 (The larger number, the sharper the sparks flying will get.)
    • ISO around 100 (Lower ISO for better quality)
    • White balance: Tungsten or Auto
    • I suggest taking pictures in RAW file.
  4. Shine flashlight on the person who does the trick to help you focus the position you want and take a test shot. The test shot should be a little darker than what you want it to be since the real shot will be brighter with the burning steel wool.
  5. Adjust settings until you get your ideal picture.

For fire spinner, wear protective equipment (at least glasses), and if you are not confident with spinning, try spinning without lighting your steel wool.

Step 6: Take a Picture

  1. Make sure of everything; camera settings, compose, etc.
  2. Burn your steel wool and spin it. Steel wool gets burnt quite fast so don't wait too long before spinning it.
  3. Take a photo.
  4. Preview your photo and adjust camera settings until you are satisfied with your picture.

Step 7: Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge

Let your imagination run wild!!!

  • Thank you to my sister who helped me writing these instructions in English.
  • Thank you for visiting.

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: )