Ross Hyman, one of the men who brings the reptiles and other exotic animals to the Frog and Reptile workshop for me, does fire-breathing as a hobby. He performs for my group after dark, and needless to say, it's an astonishing thing to see (I can only imagine the very first time he tried this)! With the force of his controlled breathing, he blows finely purified oil across a torch he holds to ignite the oil. The exposure is very tricky because Ross wears black and the ball of fire is brilliantly bright. After several tests, the exposure I determined is correct is 1/400, f/8, and 800 ISO. In post-processing, it was necessary to reduce exposure on the highlights and, at the same time, lighten the shadows so we can see detail in Ross' clothing. I recommended to my group they used the fastest frame rate possible to capture every nuance of the churning flames. I added the red glow in the background in Photoshop. This glow is a small segment of a picture I took showing a firestorm when the Porter Ranch Fire of 2003 crested a hill above my home in California. I captured that shot from my driveway with a 135mm focal length. Fortunately, the winds changed direction shortly thereafter and my home was saved.
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