Best way - Fireworks but not display

[KIPAX]

I have read about taking firework shots but I dont think it's the same as what I want.


Tonight at midnight fireworks will be going off all at once as far as you can see.. I have a high vantage point for my town that I can drive out to. I want to take pics of the town at midnight when all the fireworks go off

How should I best approach the above?

1dmkII so OKish with noise.. Sigma 24-70 2.8 should be wide enough.

How would you approach this? I am good at fast moving sport and I can take the odd setup shot... I know my camera and always work in M


Any suggestions appreciated.. Ta

 

[dazzajl]

This sounds like a great project to set yourself. Full of problems and issues to deal with.

So, if I've got the idea right. You'll have no idea exactly where the fire works will be, no warning and no chance to fire a test exposure either.

Brilliant!

I guess for framing I would err on the wide side. Far better to crop back to a good 5mp image than lose the bursts out of the edge.

As for the exposure, well fireworks are actually quite forgiving since there isn't really any detail in them and they do look pretty much the same a stop under and a stop over exposed. So, perhaps get an exposure that works for the land with an aperture of around f5.6/f8

Then it's death or glory time. The fireworks will either be where you want them and kinda well exposed, or they wont.

Hopefully you'll show us what you get.

 

[KIPAX]

No I dont need to know where the fireworks will be and I will ahve warning..

I will be at a high point overlooking the whole town.. at midnight there will be firworks from all over the place.. I want a 24m shot of the whole town as fireworks are going off...

Not really interested in shooting actual fireworks thats why I didnt think the firework tutorials covered this... I am looking for... hmm ... an overview shot? thats the best word I can think of...

I know at exactly midnight there will be hundreds from all diff locations.. I want to get the whole town... ya see? However you are right.. not much chance for testing.. erk

Well. thats the plan anyways

 

[KIPAX]

oh well........

 

[redhed17]

Well, if you are still there, I would set up to get a nice composition, and lock the camera.

I'd then use the lowest ISO and the smallest aperture, in Aperture Priority, and see what shutter speeds I was getting. If the shutter speed was longer than 30 seconds, then I'd use the Bulb setting with a remote control to open the shutter for an appropriate time in Manual mode. Then do multiple long exposures which can be merged together later. If there are a lot of fireworks you may want to do shorter exposures, as staying open for too long may just leave you with white overexposed blobs.

Or, set up in AP mode for a 5-6 second exposure, and take multiple exposures and merge the sections of the town with fireworks together later.

That's what I'd try anyway.

Getting the whole of the town exposed correctly beforehand is the key I think.

 

[theory]

imo, getting a few bursts of faster shutter speed shots will bag you some beauties - especially if its fairly close in just after a big bang. When I was doing f/work shots I was doing long exposures and tbh they just weren't as impressive. I suppose the wider the angle, the longer the exposure probably but even at 1/30th fireworks cover some distance and look pretty urgent

As for aperture - in my opinion just use whatever gives the sharpest images and set the ISO accordingly. I was using 1600 in some of my shots (at f22 sometimes, like in the linked pic below) and didn't see any noise at all, and that was on a d40x. Stop down for longer exposures so you don't overexpose as redhed says.

I'm no expert btw, I just fluked a couple of decent shots doing the above

I hope that all made sense, I'm a bit hungover!

http://sibizzo.zenfolio.com/img/v3/p549475920.jpg

 

[photo_shooto]

Don't even say anything. I am well annoyed. I'm an amateur and I decided how about my initial shots (with my new Fuji S6500fd) of fireworks at London Eye. I said to myself I will set focus to Manual with aperture to f8 and will shoot, or just use SP (Fireworks). I went there just after 2300. I was apparently on the wrong side, couldn't even find a room to stand there. It was madly full of crazy crowd. The worst thing was it was raining.

I think if you want to take nice pics go there around 1900 and stay on Victoria Embankment. Tripod is a must really. But I really want to know how ur plans of shooting fireworks shot turned out. Please post a link to the picture if you have uploaded them yet.

Thanks.

 

[HannahC]

Don't even say anything. I am well annoyed. I'm an amateur and I decided how about my initial shots (with my new Fuji S6500fd) of fireworks at London Eye. I said to myself I will set focus to Manual with aperture to f8 and will shoot, or just use SP (Fireworks). I went there just after 2300. I was apparently on the wrong side, couldn't even find a room to stand there. It was madly full of crazy crowd. The worst thing was it was raining.

I think if you want to take nice pics go there around 1900 and stay on Victoria Embankment. Tripod is a must really. But I really want to know how ur plans of shooting fireworks shot turned out. Please post a link to the picture if you have uploaded them yet.

Thanks.

I went to the fireworks in london, and was on waterloo bridge, yes it was spitting here and there, and when setting up camera for manual myself and alisonD couldn't work out why my camera wasn't focusing properly, it turned out to be a few rain drops on my lens.

the only prob was, that after a minute of the fireworks, there was so much smog that the camera wouldn't take anymore pics and was focusing on the tree even more

Have a look at my flickr new years eve/day pics and see what you think