Nighttime pictures of fire twirling

Lily

Hi,
I'm a novice and would like to ask what settings and lens would you use to take pictures of fire twirling in late afternoon/evening.

I have a Nikon D5100 with a Nikon 50mm lens and a 55-300mm lens.

I realize that there is an art to taking the fire photos and it only comes with practice, but would like to try in any case for a friend who does the fire twirling.

Thank you in advance for any help that may come my way.

bruto

Here's a page that looks as if it would help on the basic ideas:

http://www.lightstalking.com/fire-trails/

As a general rule, you'll have to set your camera manually. If you use the meter's recommendation, it will tend to overexpose.

The D5xxx and 3xxx do have "rear curtain sync" settings for flash, which sound like a good possibility for doing a long exposure of the fire trail and a quick flash at the end to pick out the person.

Lily

Thanks so much Bruto for the site, it has some good info.

I have been setting my camera manually anyway as I'm still finding my way around my new toy, but glad for your confirmation of that also.