How to take muzzle flash photos at night

[nitesite]

I greatly appreciate the encouragement and the nice compliments, everybody. It's no great secret or mystical science, and I am sure that it can be accomplished better than what I have shown y'all.

To capture the moment, I used a Canon 30D DSLR camera, which I pre-focused during the last hour of daylight. To pre-focus and maintain the focal plane, I stuck a steel target stand in the ground which looks like an upper case "H" turned sideways and welded to a steel upright rod. That way, I had a repeatable reference point over which I could aim the guns.

And the arms of the stand were pointed directly at the backstop (a round hay bale about six feet away) so it was easy to maintain the flat plane and height necessary to be in the zone of focus.

I set the camera in MANUAL mode and set the self-timer so the shutter would trip several seconds after I pushed the button (like when you are doing a self portrait pic you also want to be in).

Since the focus was manually set previously and not on "auto-focus" it didn't matter if there was light or not for the camera's to find its focus so it stays just about "dead on".

The camera was approximately 3.5-feet from the steel target stand that I used as a constant reference point. I set the ISO to 640 and the aperture to f/4.5 with a one-second exposure time.

A small flashlight was used off to the side to illuminate the hay bale so I could actually see the backstop and also hold the guns directly over the silhouetted target stand.

All it takes then is to wait for nightfall and then press the shutter release. A little white LED on the camera starts to blink. I then get the gun over the top of the stand and wait.

My camera in self-timer mode blinks eight times, followed by a half-second steady light, and when the steady light turns off the shutter trips open for one second. With hearing protection on, I can't hear the shutter open but I can see that the light just went out and one-second is plenty of time to pull the trigger.

Since the camera doesn't move between shots and there is a vertical and horizontal reference to hold the guns over, I can take about five new photos every minute and I know I have the moments captured on "film".

I use Photoshop Elements 5.0 to crop the image a tiny bit based on the length of the flash signature, and change the image size to 600-pixels wide for a manageable file size and just let the results speak for themselves.

Pretty simple, isn't it?

Thank you all, again, for your replies. I've enjoyed doing it! :D

[cohutt]

This is informative - I was wondering how much ammo you wasted getting them but it seems you were pretty efficient. (Not that there is anything wrong with just wasting an evening away slinging ammo down range. )

[Blackdog]

Taking the shots at night makes sense. I would not have thought about the pre-focus trick. I gotta try this when I get somewhere I can shoot at night. And, what a koinkydink, I also have a Canon 30D. :yesnod:

This could be alot of fun. Thanks!!!

[nitesite]

BD,

Since you have a 30D this should be helpful. :)

For the exposure, I turned the dial to the "M" setting then used the ISO button and turned the back wheel to 640 ISO. The trick as far as aperture is that you have to push the power switch all the way up to the ~ setting and then use the rear wheel to then set the aperture to f/4.0 or f/4.5. The thumbwheel sets the shutter speed in "M" mode. For all I know, two or three seconds would work just as well unless moonlight or street lights start to illuminate the camera sensor.

I'll add another "cheat" to how I got the focus just right.

I took a long sheet of cardboard and stapled a paper target to it, then stood it up against the target stand during late daylight. I used the "auto focus" to get the red focus squares to register and the camera "beeped" to confirm the focus lock. Then I switched the lens from AF to MF. Done as far as focus was concerned.

After that, it was pretty easy.

[Zeus]

Excellent information, thank you. Is a digital SLR required or do you think similar results can be achieved with a point and shoot non-DSLR camera ? Something like a Canon PowerShot ?

[Oreo]

You could definitely do these shots with a typical consumer level non-DSLR camera. A Canon PowerShot should be plenty capable. You just need to know how to set the camera's exposure & focus settings manually.

Here's a few more suggestions to really maximize the picture quality on these...

If possible, try to use the smallest aperture size that still allows a decent pic. This will increase your depth of field making the picture appear more in focus. (The smaller the aperture size, the larger the f-number.)

Focus quality can be further enhanced by increasing the distance between the camera & the subject and using the optical zoom to get the picture field of view you want.

You can play with the ISO setting to get the muzzle flash to appear more or less bright in the picture. Too high an ISO setting will wash out any detail from the muzzle flash though, and make the picture appear grainy.
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As an alternative, it might be worth trying the video record function on a typical digital camera and then play the video back frame by frame & just capture the one that makes the best pic. These little cameras can sometimes have very high frame rates (1 frame per 1/10,000sec) at the expense of a very low resolution. You might find some very interesting & different results from this method. Might even catch the bullet in the pic as it's leaving the barrel- something the other method could never do.

[Blackdog]

Excellent information, thank you. Is a digital SLR required or do you think similar results can be achieved with a point and shoot non-DSLR camera ? Something like a Canon PowerShot ?

My Powershot SD790 has a manual mode, but no manual focus. Aperture and shutter speed may be adjustable manually, but I can't find 'em. It would be a challenge (for me). The video mode Oreo suggested sounds promising.