I see quite a few photos of guys working over a forge with a nice fire going in the forge.
I want to take a couple of pics of my forge all fired up and I was wonder how to handle the lighting? Dim lighting in the shop or bright lighting?
Flash on the camera or no flash?
I have just an everyday run of the mill 35mm camera

WT- I don't have a lot of expierience, but when I used a 35MM camera. Mine had a built in light meter and I would take 3 or 4 pictures with different openings and 2 or 3 with the flash and different settings. then I would pick the best one or two. I do the same thing with my digital but if I don't like it I can erase the digital ones. I was always told to take several at different settings to make sure you get one good one. If you jot down the settings when you take the picture, then you can compare the results to the picture and it will help you with getting the proper settings for later pictures.

Irn

Inside
Start by taking an exposure of just the fire and then adding light to the rest of the scene to match that exposure. If you have too much light on the scene the fire will wash out. If you have too little light on the scene it will appear dark. This is compared to the exposure of the fire.

Outside
To intentionally include the fire in a scene outside, arrange the photo so the fire is against a dark background, shadowed area outside, or something to make the fire jump out against the surroundings.



Email me with what equiptment you have to work with, a diagram of the set up, and we can try to figure out a solution to the problem.