I was tagged (as in “you’re it”) some time ago by at least one person to participate in a meme going around the blogosphere. This one is the “6th photo on your 6th page of Flickr photos.” There seems to be a pretty broad overlap between Flickr’s demographic (not just photographers, but people who take tons of digital photos and want to share them) and bloggers who tag each other in memes.
To the left is an image I compiled using photos I took in Mesa, AZ on the night of July 4, 2006. I don’t think I ever finished processing all of the photos. Those were the first 160 I selected.
That night, I was surprised and pleased with how well the photos came out while looking at the preview screen on my camera. I figured a few of them would be good enough to post online. Later on, while at my computer going through them. I was surprised to find so many of them turned out as good as they did.
A few quick tips if you want to take some shots like these:
– Get close. I was about 100 feet from the launching area, closer than the closest paying spectators. It was a parking lot off to the side. I had to point my tripod almost straight up to catch the fireworks.
– Use manual focus. Find a point past the launching area that will be about as far away as the peak of the fireworks and focus on that. Set it and forget it.
– The longer your shutter speed, the longer the fireworks’ streaks will be and the higher likelihood of catching them. However, if the streaks are too long, it stops looking like fireworks and looks more abstract. Start at half a second and try not to exceed one second.
– Use aperture for exposure. Start with it wide open (smallest number) and close it down if you’re losing color from overexposure.
– Don’t use shutter speed for exposure. By adjusting the shutter speed, you may inadvertently change the look and shape of the fireworks.
– Anticipate. Don’t watch the explosions. Watch very closely for the projectiles on their way up and open the shutter just before they get to their peak.
– Post-production. For the most part, you’ll just want to use curves to darken the darks. Then add some color saturation.
In 2007, I think I forgot a piece of my tripod at home, so I was unable to take any good photos. I was also more in the mood to hang out and watch the show.
In 2008, I was at the fireworks show but neither took photos nor watched the show. I was too busy jumping up and down over and over again.