I love the dry ice nozzle for the PMI Smoke Ninja. What it does, essentially, is cool the smoke as it leaves the machine, and that changes everything about how it behaves. Rather than billowing upwards and dispersing quickly the way warm smoke does, it slows right down and coils into these beautiful, strand-like shapes that hang in the air just long enough for you to actually work with them. On camera, that slower movement translates into something that looks almost liquid – really elegant and considered, rather than chaotic.
For this particular shoot, we used it to fill the umbrella with smoke, but also let it spill over the top so it slowly fell away from the edges. That gradual drift added a really lovely sense of movement to the raincloud look I was trying to create. The key thing with dry ice smoke is patience – you fill the space, then you wait just a beat for it to settle into those gorgeous coiling shapes before you fire the shutter. Rush it and you lose the magic.
You can do so many interesting things with it. It works brilliantly for product videos if you want to add a bit of drama and atmosphere without things feeling overdone. But it is also fantastic for portraits, and that is honestly where I think it really comes into its own as a smoke effect portrait studio tool.
I discovered it works especially well with curly hair, which was a genuinely happy accident. Lizzie has very thick, tight curls, and because the smoke moves so slowly and clings rather than disperses, it wrapped itself right around the individual strands. The result was extraordinary – it genuinely looked like her hair was on fire, in the best possible way. The texture of the curls gave the smoke something to catch on and hold, creating these little pockets and wisps that looked completely intentional. Straight hair would have been lovely too, but there is something about that combination of the dry ice smoke effect and really voluminous curls that just works on a different level. Very cool!
After
Before