Fire in the neighborhood

[JMI]

Photojournalism isn't really my thing but there was a house fire a block away from my home on Friday night. The neighbors let us know what was going on and I grabbed my cameras. Some of the shots are below. The entire series can be found at http://www.jm-imaging.com/coppermine...s.php?album=93

There were no injuries but it looks like the family lost everything. I spoke with the home owner on Saturday night and, understandably, he was still in shock.

As far as the photography goes, I found it very challenging. Most shots were around 1/30 and 2.8f and many were too motion blurred to be at all useful. Some were shot with the Sigma 24-70, the rest with the Canon 70-200 L.

[Wes]

There's some good work here (love the shot of the house and cars on fire). One thing I would have done differently.... bumped the ISO and went with a higher shutter speed. One of these was shot at 1/20, and several others at 1/50.

[mdparthum]

There is some really nice stuff here. The State Firemen's and Fire Marshal's Association has a photo contest (deadline in May) that is always in need of some good pictures.
www.sffma.org

[JMI]

Originally Posted by Wes

There's some good work here (love the shot of the house and cars on fire). One thing I would have done differently.... bumped the ISO and went with a higher shutter speed. One of these was shot at 1/20, and several others at 1/50.

Yeah, you're right. When I got on scene I started shooting. After a few frames I stopped and bumped the ISO to 400 on the 20D and 640 on the 40D. Probably should have gone higher but, since I knew the images would be very contrasty and there would be large, dark areas, I was concerned about the noise.

Like I said, PJ isn't really my gig. ;)