Alright! This is what this blog is all about! Me doing some cool stuff with my camera!
I had heard about this technique of twirling flaming steel wool around and catching it with a long exposure in early December. It sounded pretty cool but I had little time to mess with the idea due to finals and projects due before then end of the semester. Well, I finally got around to trying this out.
I bought me a cheap whisk (the wirey thing you mix cake mix and other ingredients together with by hand), some steel wool (very fine), and a cable with a clip on the end. I already had the ignition source. I’ll get to that awesome unknown phenomenon in a bit.
I took the steel wool and pulled it apart a bit so as to make it more breathable to get more sparks from it. I stuffed it in the whisk and attached the whisk to the end of the cable. Then I set my camera for a 30 second exposure at f9 ISO 200 and I set the 10 second timer to give me time to walk to my position before the shutter opened. Then I pulled out the ignition source… a 9 volt battery. I rubbed the battery on the steel wool and it lit the wool not on fire but it got very hot and started the hot ambers. Then I started twirling it around and got the effect you see here.
So, I think I found the sparklers for the adults next 4th of July.