Please help me

[macropleasure]

I have an importsant question.
yesterday at night they were havin g fireworks in my village
and i decided to take some shots...
i took them from quite far away and used my canon 400d

but the camera refused taking shots

it only allowed me to take two....

can anybody tell me..how i am able to manually to control the shutter in order to keep it open longer....which modus do i have to use...?

 

[Big Mike]

For long exposure shots, the camera has a feature for noise reduction. I believe that it's triggered automatically when the shutter speed is over two seconds (or maybe it's 10...I don't remember). Anyway, when this feature is activated, the camera does it's thing after the shot...which causes it to be 'lock up' for about the same amount of time that the shot took.

I found this out, the first time I tried to shoot fireworks.

I believe that you should be able to turn this feature off, with one of the custom functions in the camera's menus (read the manual).

This may have been what was affecting you the other night.

 

[Garbz]

My guesses:

a) Cameras also often refuse to take a photo if it can't focus lock on something. At night this is hard so find your focus by pointing it at something bright far away like a house with lights on (or manually setting the camera to infinity) and then flick the focus to manual so the camera doesn't stuff about.

b) The other option is before a firework goes off the scene is normally dark, very dark, even though fireworks are quite bright. So the camera could lock up trying to expose the background before the firework goes off.

When taking photos of fireworks your best bet is to use the camera in fully manual mode, not Av or Tv or any other automatic mode because the lighting is simply too erratic.

The options are simple. Shutter controls how long the streaks are (1-3 seconds is a good number), ISO and Aperture controls how bright the fireworks and the scene is. If you want the background to be part of the photo like so: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/229/486068637_ea4fad1f74_b.jpg Then set your shutter speed to what you want like 2 seconds, and play with the aperture and ISO and take test shots until the background is right for you. With a bit of luck when the fireworks start everything will be constant.

 

[macropleasure]

thanks you two..your advice has been very practical..
can't wait for the next fireworks to start


garbz: were those pics taken in Brisbane..
i see you from Brisbane..i am flying to Brisbane in october
i am going on a gap year in Australia

 

[glaston]

What's a gap year?

 

[macropleasure]

a gap year:

sometimes people like to take a year off from school/work...
well usually..before they start university..or after they finished university

i have just finished school and before starting university
i wanna go to Australia for a year and work and have fun there

gap year is a british word i think..they do gap years quite a lot..
it basically means..a year off