So I took about 100 shots of 2 firework shows happening in two different prefectures at the same time (8-830ish on one side of my apartment, 830ish to 9 on the other side). Not a lot of time to set anything up. I wasn't sure about what time they started or finished. I was just coming home from work. These are about the only 3 that really did anything for me...any good?
What was your exposure time? The very bright central areas suggests to me that you may have used a very long exposure that blew out all the central detail. But it depends on whether this was the look you were after or not. When I last shot fireworks, I found an exposure time of 2 or 3 seconds was plenty, and resulted in distinct details on all the bursts.
I believe I had it at 8 seconds. That last photo was the finale as far as the bigger show was concerned. I didn't realize it would have so many big ones go off.
It was hard to time them sometimes...I figured 8 seconds I could hit the shutter, wait a second or two, let the firework go off, give it enough time to expose before it would close the shutter. I will try a slower speed next time.
It would be very helpful if the EXIF were still there on these... it does look like on the first two, your exposure is close, perhaps a stop or so bright. Your exposure time looks pretty good though, so you probably just needed to stop down a little more. For fireworks, you control the brightness of the tracks with your aperture, and the length of the tracks (and/or number of fireworks captured per exposure) with your shutter. You almost always want to be at base ISO, and the optimum aperture can be from f/4 up to f/8.
Zoom in. The pictures are way too wide for what the landscape has in it.
The fireworks themselves look fine, for bigger bursts like finales, stop down a stop or two on the aperture, or reduce the shutter speed to avoid the center blowing out.
I usually shot in bulb mode with a remote trigger. I check a few test shots and look for blown out spots. If there are too many I use a smaller aperture. That usually does the trick. Also, ISO 100.
I usually shoot fireworks at iso100, and f16 or 22, using Bulb. The actual trails and bursts are extremely bright and it is very easy to overexpose them. You can also get some pretty interesting results by moving the camera with the shutter open. We don't have much of a skyline here where I live, so I have to be creative to have anything worth seeing.
I agree on the tighter crop. You're lucky, you get to watch two shows.
most of the time the smoke takes up a lot of space in the frame, covering up some details. If you have time to take a shot just before the fireworks start, take it, and assuming your framing doesn't change while on tripod, combine the shots in post processing to clean up the unwanted smoke. remote trigger is a must. If you are not in bulb mode, and you have set your exposure a few seconds too long and you think you have already captured the shot, but the shutter is still open and you fear some blownout highlights, cover the lens with a black sheet. In fact, be ready to cover your lens with a black sheet everytime a sudden burst of bright fireworks happen.
those are the "theories" that i am going to apply in tonight's fireworks. It's singapore's birthday today and the biggest fireworks display is expected tonight :)
here's a test shot i did last saturday during the rehearsal. The banding and other low-res artefacts were caused by the transfer from facebook to dropbox to android to dpc.
most of the time the smoke takes up a lot of space in the frame, covering up some details. If you have time to take a shot just before the fireworks start, take it, and assuming your framing doesn't change while on tripod, combine the shots in post processing to clean up the unwanted smoke. remote trigger is a must. If you are not in bulb mode, and you have set your exposure a few seconds too long and you think you have already captured the shot, but the shutter is still open and you fear some blownout highlights, cover the lens with a black sheet. In fact, be ready to cover your lens with a black sheet everytime a sudden burst of bright fireworks happen.
those are the "theories" that i am going to apply in tonight's fireworks. It's singapore's birthday today and the biggest fireworks display is expected tonight :)
here's a test shot i did last saturday during the rehearsal. The banding and other low-res artefacts were caused by the transfer from facebook to dropbox to android to dpc.
Try to get a spot to shoot from that's upwind from the smoke.
I tried couple of ways, first that everyone is talking about f16-f22 with ISO 100 and keep shutter speed varying but I also do something different and that is I keep Aperture f9 but on other hand keep shutter speed to say 30 seconds. Here you might say then I am surely going to have a big blow but no what I do is I keep a black board in front of the lens and whatever shot I like I remove the board let the light go in and put the board back until the time is over!
This allows me to capture multiple burst in single shot with blowing off the photographs and this trick works all the time!
I meant with I end up getting something like this!
what I do is I keep a black board in front of the lens and whatever shot I like I remove the board let the light go in and put the board back until the time is over!
This allows me to capture multiple burst in single shot with blowing off the photographs and this trick works all the time!
