Steel Wool Photography
A Step by Step Steel Wool Photography Guide
STEEL WOOL PHOTOGRAPHY AND HOW TO TAKE STUNNING PHOTOS FOR FREE
Steel wool photography is hot ambers flying through the air and with long exposures we can capture sparks going through the air.
Steel wool photography is becoming a lot more popular amongst the worlds best photographers, a lot of the new photographers or hobbies are trying to take their creativity to the next level but there are a lot of information available out on the web, in this blog I will show you how to take your creativity to another level by show you a step by step guide.
Safety Must Always Come First When it Comes to Steel Wool Photography
Steel wool photography can be very dangerous if you aren’t careful, we are playing with fire while we capture these stunning images. Here are few helpful tips
- Always pick a location without any flammables nearby, in our case we did at the beach. Always make sure you check the weather and DO NOT TRY IT ON A HOT DAY!
- It’s always good to have a fire extinguishers with you as you preform the steel wool. My friend had a {amazing link}
- Always walk around and check that nothing is on fire at your site after you finish.
- Wear long sleeves and a hat to protect yourself from flying sparks.
- Only have people you know around while you do this, please make sure that there are no animals, children or the public around or make sure they are at distance.
- Please use common sense at all times and do not try this in forest or near old historic wooden properties.
Just a reminder that I will not be responsible for any damages you will cause to anything.
What You Will Need to Create Steel Wool Photos?
I would assume that you are an upcoming photographer and you have recently got into photography or you are a photographer and want to improve on your photography skills.
Steel will Photography is a lot of fun and please always make sure to do this in a safe place.
These are a few things you will need:
- DSLR camera
You will need a DSLR camera that can shoot manual, in my case I use a Canon 5D mark three. My camera recommendation is Canon EOS 5D Mark IV from Amazon. - Steel Wool
Steel wool is need to create those sparks in the air, steel wool comes in a variety of grades ranging from 0000 to 4, generally fine grades are the best. We use 16 Pads Steel Wool, Very Fine No. 0000 from Amazon and it worked great. - A metal whisk
Metal whisk work great and it would melt, we bought ours from amazon and after so many use, it is still in great shape. Buy Milk and Egg Beater Balloon Metal Whisk for Blending as it has already got a place to attach the chain or rope. - Rope or chain
You can use anything to spin the whisk but we recommend a metal chain, here is my favourite chain: Beirui Premium 6 Foot Chain Heavy Duty Dog Leash from Amazon and if you don’t use it then you can give it away as gift to your friends. - A lighter
We need to light the steel wool so need a lighter, my favourite is the VEKSUN Flexible Plasma Arc Long Neck as it has a long neck and you can light up the steel wool from a distance.
That is all you will need to start steel wool photography adventure but of course we can get very creative and attach lights to the chains or get multiple people do it. Please tag me on Instagram with your creative work, my Instagram: @ZakShots or you can also use #ZakShots
Camera Settings for Steel Wool Photography
Now that you have your camera and the necessary items, we can move on to the camera settings assuming that you know how to use your camera in manual mode.
Steel Wool Photography Camera Settings:
Step 1: Shutter speed
I think this is an important part as you will have to hold open the shutter in order to capture the flying sparks. I normally experiment between 5 to 30 seconds, for the best shots try 20 or 30 seconds.
Step 2: Aperture
You can be creative with it but remember to have the subject in focus, I previously shot between f6 to f11, for best result try f11.
Step 3: ISO
If you can keep your ISO to the lowest your camera can allow, then you wouldn’t have to deal with much noise or very bright areas on the photo. I would recommend IOS 100-200.
Should You Expose for the subject or the background?
As you read above it is best to focus on the subject, I would hight recommended focusing on the steel wool and then take another photo exposing on the background, it can be the star or you can use your photoshop skills and replace the background which I do not recommend as it is very difficult but possible.
The image above; this image took forever to edit as I wanted to add stars and smooth or remove the sea weed. I tried completing removing the black sky in the “before” photo and I ran into a lot of issues but then I place some stars turned opacity to 25%, it looks good but if you look closely you can see that the top of the sparks are dimmed 25% compare the original that because of the star image we placed there on top.