Help - steam and spritz!

[Jeff]

Hi I'm a novice and like what I like and shoot what i shoot trying to be creative and experimental along the way but was wondering what's the best way to capture steam from a kettle or cup or/and a spritz from a perfume bottle for example.

I appreciate experiment may be the best way but the cost of perfune/aftershave and the limited length of steam on a cup has resulted in mybasking.

Any advice on lighting, background colour, speeds etc would be great. I stress I'm just a normal amateur photographer shooting with a canon d500 and not in a studio.

Thanks everybody :)

[Ron Correia]

@lbjefferies Hi Jeff. I'm not sure what specific effect you want to achieve with the steam or spritz, since that can vary by taste. Here's a good "how to" article related to steam, though. If nothing else it will be a good starting point, especially since the steam is cheaper to produce than perfume spritz!
http://www.learnmyshot.com/How-To-Photograph-Steam

[Jeff]

@kannafoot thanks Ron I just want to be able to see them on the shot. The pattern of the steam and the spritz of liquid when the 'button ' is pressed. Not necessarily individual particles just would like an idea of where to start.

Thanks for the link :)

[Kiran]

@lbjefferies Jeff, I would love to know how to photograph those two as well. Hope someone will come and give more tips. I haven't tried spritz, but tried steam couple of times with not so great results.

[Phil]

@lbjefferies @ikamera Morning! I vaguely remember a thread about this a while ago and can't help you on the speeds etc but I know that the contrast of light had a lot to do with it... the shot had to be dark enough for the light to highlight the steam.. does that make any sense?! Here's one I did earlier..
which kind of shows the contrast. Good luck!

[Phil]

..PS .. never done a spritz shot before, but this is wd40 in a gun with a light shining down and across the end of the barrel in the dark as the gun is fired. Took about 2 zillion tries to get it (my son's challenge and allegedly quality family time). Definitely need something fast for this one!

[Dawn]

No advice on the technique, but personally I'd fill a perfume/aftershave bottle with water to practice! Or just buy a cheap spritz bottle to get the "how to" sorted out first....