taking pictures of fllames

[tattymarbots]

Hi

tried to take a picture of a candle last night, turned all the lights off and pre focussed camera, but no matter what settings i tried the flame was never sharp

could anyone give me an idea a rough idea of what settigns i should be using

cheers
steve

[Colin RedGriff]

Did you use a flash?

What exposure settings did you use?

If you had all the lights out and were just using the candle light I suspect the shutter speed was pretty slow which would cause blur. You'll need to add some flash to freeze the flame I suspect.

[Colin RedGriff]

Did you use a flash?

What exposure settings did you use?

If you had all the lights out and were just using the candle light I suspect the shutter speed was pretty slow which would cause blur. You'll need to add some flash to freeze the flame I suspect.

[tattymarbots]

yes it was dark, all lights off

i tried oing from shutter speeds of 1 sec to 1/250 sec, but didnt use flash

really only wanted the light inside the lantern

here is the best (of the ones i took) picture i managed

[Gemm]

I'd probably spot meter on the flame for the exposure, but obviously the rest of the picture will be underexposed, so you might need to do a bit of HDR.

[Simpo Two]

If you're happy with the sharpness of the casing (front and back) then the candle must be equally sharp. I think what's foxing you is the over-exposed halo. You can either give a shorter exposure to get the flame right and lose the case, or as mentioned, take two and merge. It's a relative brightness thing, and eyes are better than cameras.