Experimenting with fire and photography

The night before Lucas' birthday, Jason tested out our new fire pit... by burning a bunch of papers he had cleaned out from our filing cabinet (our shredder is broken :).

I have been wanting to find a way to experiment with taking fire pictures, capturing every little lick of flame.

Well, I did it!  And let me tell you, my camera fell in love that day.

Settings: 50mm, ISO 800, f/1.8, 1/4000 sec.

Any suggestions on how I could have fixed my settings for this one? I know it's at a different angle, so the light would have changed.