Fireworks Go Boom
Posted in Photography by CujoJuly 5th, 2006 - 12:5 AM
Well for those of us in North America we probably know that today was the 4th of July denoting the US’ birthday. Being located in a proud border city with Americans who routinely outdo us on fireworks we decided to head on down to the waterfront to see the show. This was my first time shooting fireworks and the results actually surprised me quite a bit. I ended up shooting over 100 shots and well not all are great but the more you shoot the more shots you’ll be able to pull out for use. I think the fireworks started out a little too early as the sky was still no where near dark and those shots are crap (I’ll admit that), as the night sky began getting darker the shots got better then in my opinion it got too dark and the shots lost some of their feel.
I had a great backdrop for the shots, a nice large tree to the right which actually got in the way of some shots, the International Bridge in the bottom of the frame as well as the Michigan Soo Locks and the Edison Water Electrical Plant (all old/important structures in their own right). You can’t really make out all of these in the shots but I thought I’d let you know they were there. For tonight however I’m only putting up two sneak previews as I simply do not have the time tonight to go through all the pictures and resizing them for the web and a photo gallery. So without further babble I give you the sneak peek at my first attempt at fireworks.
July 5th, 2006 at 8:11 am
Those are great shots. My camera simply will not take a decent shot of fireworks. I have no shutter-speed control. I can turn the flash off, giving me a 3 to 4 second shutter speed - too slow for fireworks, or leave the flash on, which results in a 1/500 second shutter speed - much too fast.
Anyway, it’s good to see you’re becoming less frustrated with the DSLR. I can’t wait to see an expanded gallery of the show.
July 5th, 2006 at 8:31 am
See Mark, there’s where you got confused. My shutter speed on those shots was in the 2.5-3 second range. I had it at 4 at the start of the show but was missing more then taking so I brought it down a bit. To get the actual firework movement the slower shutter speed is needed or else you end up with just the quick little booms and bursts of light. Not sure if you can set the aperature or not on the digicam you have but mine was stepped to f/11 allowing some light in but not lots. No flash fired. Fireworks are bright enough that a flash isn’t needed and will drown out anything really necessary (trick the camera).
I’m no way a professional but just repeating what I’ve read online and after the results on my first try I believe what it was saying was correct. There’s some other little things I need though like a remote release for my shutter (anyone have a spare one laying around compatible with a Canon 20D?) to prevent some of the camera shake that happened when I would hit the shutter button. Still most shots came out, it was a fun game of timing the fireworks on when you think they were going off though.
July 5th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
another set of great photos, brother. well done!
July 6th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Wew, those are some great shots you got there. Unfortunately I missed any and all firework shows in the area because of a ongoing server issue. But, its great to see you putting that camera of yours to good use. I’ve shot fireworks in the past and have to say sometimes its hard timing it right, but your shots came out great, keep up the great work.
July 6th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
I didn’t get to see the american fireworks, but soonews.ca posted a short video of them. Even seeing just the video they were 100x better than the canadian ones. Really good pictures.
July 6th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Tarellel - thanks for the comment, I think I shot 156 pictures to be exact, these are 2 of the better ones, I probably have about 20 solid pictures out of the shoot but I’m really happy with them.
Sandra - Saw the video SooNews had up as well, I think that was the mini-midway through finale that they had (the 2nd picture in this post). They shot off quite a bit of low ones then started back high again. Crazy fireworkers.
I hope to get the actual gallery up sometime this week. Time will tell I guess.
July 6th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Canadian Mark,
My opinion is “the longer the better” when shooting fireworks. I was out shooting that night too and had several good ones come out from 10 to 25 second exposures. The nice thing about long exposures is that it blurs the river and adds a nice softening effect to the reflections from the explosion. Plus, if there’s a “streamer” going up before the actual firework you can capture that which makes the firework look like a giant flower in the sky.
Great shots, I can’t wait to see more.
PS> Have a flickr page?
July 6th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Mike thanks for visiting. Sorry but I do not have a Flickr account, just never “got on to it”. I do have a photo gallery on this site that you can check out in the links up on the right hand side there under Categories. I have a plan to make this different in the near future.
It looks like you were further down the river than me, I’m thinking closer to the pavillion (I checked your flickr).
Also just as a curious bit, how’d you find me (the blog)?
July 7th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Curt where were you located to get those elevated shots?
They look great!
July 7th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Hey Darcy,
Wasn’t elevated at all, we were in the field area by the Art Gallery (Clergue Park) where the big fountain in the water is, we were probably 50 yards if not more from the water as I didn’t want to get too close to people (they ended up getting close to us). I then threw the camera on the tripod and raised it about six feet then also titled it up a bit so I wasn’t getting motion from people walking past us etc in the shots (they’d turn to blurs). You’re not the first though to think I was up on a hill or something though.
July 7th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Great shots! Where were you, strapped to a helicopter? Also, does your canon have a self-timer? Canadian Mark’s “Fear Nothing” blog has a step-by-step on use of the self-timer function when taking shots with no flash and without a tripod. I use it for exactly the reason you are concerned with; when I push the button the camera shakes minutely. This way, I have ten seconds to get my hand off the camera before it takes the picture.
July 7th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Yeah it has the self timer but it’s not really needed for this purpose for me, it’d be stuck at that quick 10 second shot and I’d lose a lot of the other controls I believe. I took my chances without getting a shutter release but I can definitely see the benefits of one. Also if I pushed the shutter when the sky was dark (prefirework explosion) the elapsed time missed the shake and I got nice clear photos.
Nothing above (or coming up were touched up in photoshop either — I like the non-touched up looks of things).
Also I think wind may have played a factor in some shake as well, the camera was probably tripodded (is that a word?) up about 6 feet and some inches for the shots and it’s not like it was a calm night last Tuesday
July 12th, 2006 at 12:04 am
Cujo,
I ran into your blog by way of rabsteen.info which I got from thequeenoflightandjoy.blogspot.com.
You’re right, I was right in front of the pavillion. I had my camera set to MF and left the focal length through the entire show. I sat there with my remote clicking away while enjoying the fireworks with my own eyes. I’ll admit, that didn’t lead to much variety..
July 12th, 2006 at 9:19 am
Mike
Thanks for the cookie trail of blog finding
I did a similar set up as you. Tripod, set the manual focus after seeing the initial ones go up and set a focal length (changed this 3 times in the first 5 minutes or so though — first wasn’t getting any, second too many people in the shots, 3rd was perfect well what you see above anyway). I don’t currently have a remote so I was going crazy with the shutter button hoping shots would still be okay and well they seemed to work.
This reminds me though, I need to get that gallery up. Wow I’m behind.