Sunday October 28, 2007, 1144 Mainsville Road, Southampton Township, Franklin County. I was loading the truck with my camera stuff preparing to head out and look for deer when Franklin County 911 alerted the 15 box for a house fire. That time of morning along with the dispatcher saying the caller advises across from or next to, I changed my plans. Arriving right behind the first in Engine Company provided me the chance to get some good photographs. Not having my flash with me potentially took that chance away. The first in rigs did not turn on there scene lighting giving me only the fire to light things up and get the shots.
Now for the technical side of the photographs. I did not change the camera settings to high ISO, those that know me know I can't see that tiny stuff without glasses anymore. And any body that has ever shot fires also knows that you are given very little time to get the shot, conditions are changing rapidly and if the engine company is doing there job (and they did here) the opportunity goes away in a hurry. The camera was hand held for all photographs. The first photograph (fire from a window on side B) was taken at a focal length of 27 mm, ISO 640 at 1/13 second at f3.5 at 6:31:34 a.m. The second photograph (fire from front door) was also a focal length of 27 mm, ISO 640, 1/20 second at 3.5 at 6:31:59 a.m. Having no flash with me after the fire was knocked down I had to turn the ISO up to 3200 because of the lack of light.
Now the question goes out to the photographers looking at this site, under the conditions I was shooting how do I keep from blowing out all the detail of the fire? I have one shot that has great detail of the flames but the rest of the photograph is so underexposed that I don't know if it can be saved. Or is there a way to rescue the flames detail in Photoshop? The sad part is had they not changed the time that we change our clocks it would have been light out and I would not have had any problems (well okay, at least not these problems).
For additional photographs of the fire and all the information on it please visit my other site at http://shippensburgfiredepartment.blogspot.com/
4 comments:
My biggest piece of advice would be to....ALWAYS CARRY YOUR FLASH!!!!
Other than that I don't think there is much you can do here. What is gone (blown out) can't be recovered.
In the image where you have great detail in the flames you might be able to process the image a few times in the raw converter and pull out some detail but knowing your iso and the time of day I think that you might have a ton of noise.
So I think this one is what it is.
Brad....I know just a little of photography, enough to appreciate a good picture when I see one.... and I think you take some excellent pictures. Thanks for the great action shots on this fire and missing the "monkey's jumping off the porch". I e-mailed my wife your link who is more into photography than me, maybe she can shed some insight.
Thanks Andy, if I would of had my flash with me I would have captured the two monkey's bailing from the porch. You guys moved a little to fast for existing light. Heck is was getting warm where I was. I already figured on what Brian said, blown out is blown out, my fault I was not prepared. Kudos to you and the rest of your wagon crew on a good hit.
Good Photos Maybe see you friday Todd
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