![]() ![]() ![]() Since this testing, I had the chance to use the smoke machine for one of my creative projects, and it worked flawlessly. Plus, it’s comes handy when throwing a killer party! It can be coupled with the wind machine, because the smoke will keep acting as a light diffuser and texture adder even when dissolved in the whole studio (as long as there’s enough of it). My final take on the smoke machine is that it is a nice toy (tool!) to play with during shooting of all kind, because it does add textures and light effects even if used in very small quantities, or create a crazy and out-of-this-world mood if used on full speed. The smoke itself is absolutely fine for the models’ and the photographer’s health it isn’t hot, so basically nothing wrong or dangerous came out from the testing, but for the aforementioned alarm going off all the time. I eventually had to remove the alarm and hide it in a drawer. On a side note, all this smoke did trigger my smoke alarm like crazy. Not necessarily a bad thing, actually, but to be kept in mind. Lights get super soft and smooth, but get absorbed also a lot. Colour “clusters” appear, the smoke’s textures prevail and the models can get lost in them. When the smoke is a lot, crazy and unpredictable things happen.The wind adds a bit more of movement, which is never a bad thing. When wind is added to the equation, the previous effects stay valid as far as there’s enough smoke around.It also softens the lights, with a beautiful effect on the skin. When the smoke is in small quantities, it does add texture and colours to the background, which otherwise would be plain black.Going back to the three questions I wanted to answer with the tests, here are my thoughts on the resulting photos: Here the smoke starts to be visible, and with it the colors around the model get more vivid. I used mostly the XF56mmF1.2, but I opted for the XF35mmF2 in some shots. I operated on the aperture to compensate for the light changes due to the smoke quantity, between f/11 to f/16. I set the camera at ISO 200, 1/180 th of a second, and fixed white balance. When smoke is around, however, the lights and colours get way more mixed up. You can see how the light diffuses on the next drawing. These two flashes are pointing upwards, and are kept far enough from the models so they don’t hit them directly (when there’s no smoke). The flash on the left wears a pink gelatin, the one on the right a blue one. The two flashes on the ground are two Godox TT600, the head zoomed at 20mm. If you don’t own reflectors, remember: your white walls are great reflectors. Since these lights are the ones hitting the models’ faces, I had the domes facing white reflectors to soften up their light. I placed the red disk on the left dome, and the blue+green dome on the right. The flash on the left and the one on the right (from the photographer point of view) are Godox AD360 with the original domes on them. I used four flashes, all hitting from the sides. I’m no Giotto, but the scheme should be clear enough. Let’s have a look at my drawing of the light scheme I used. F1, F2, F3, and F4 are the flashes, SM is the smoke machine, WM is the wind machine. If you can’t live with it, smoke isn’t probably your thing. There’s no easy calculation here, especially because the sprayed smoke will immediately start to swirl and dissolve around, so basically every shot will have a different result in terms on light. Of course, some of the light will be lost, absorbed by the smoke or simply bounced somewhere else, so the more the smoke the more the light you’ll need. The more smoke you add between the flash and the model, the softer the light. The smoke will act as a diffuser on the light hitting the model, hence it will soften the light.Try using a side one for the best effect (from under, from above, from left, or from right). How much smoke you’ll see depends on how much smoke you sprayed (ugh!), but also on what angle the flash is hitting the smoke. You’ll see the smoke in the picture (because it is bouncing back light at you, hence it “appears”). ![]() The main thing to consider when using smoke and flash lights is that smoke is white (usually), and that some of the light will bounce on it and hit the lens, while some will start bouncing around and eventually hit the model. Same as before, but I switched one the wind machine. ![]()
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