Things I learned about fireworks this weekend.

ronlane · Jul 7, 2014

I did my research all week before on settings for the camera, focus, remote trigger and was all ready this year. I had prior weekend to "test" my knowledge and show vast improvement from last years attempt. Well after shooting 3 nights of different City fireworks, here's a couple of things that I learned from the project.

1) This is too close and from the wrong angle. We set up by the pond close to where the fireworks were going to be set off. We soon discovered that we set up about 45 degrees in the wrong direction, so we had to adjust and I got a tree in the left side of my frame. The bright side, I did have a foreground element to it.

Yukon fireworks-18 by Ron_Lane, on Flickr

2) This is too far away for me. We decided that on Thursday night we were too close and this time we wanted to the city in the frame. (Actually wanted one other element in the frame but it wasn't going to happen. After starting with a 15-30mm, I changed to a 28-135mm for this display and zoomed in some.

July fourth-3 by Ron_Lane, on Flickr

3) This is just about right as far as distance goes, but there was no interesting foreground elements to it. Granted this was taken from my front yard where we had access to watch the city fireworks without having to worry about crowds or traffic and could consume whatever beverage we wanted in peace. (lol)

Mustang fireworks-12 by Ron_Lane, on Flickr

Even though, I didn't get the shot that I had in my mind, I still got some usable photos of the fireworks that are better than my previous attempts. I have learned and will keep my notes for next year, so that I may finally get the shot I am wanting.

Until next year.

astroNikon · Jul 7, 2014

Nice shots.
It's all a learning process.
I shot my cities fireworks and learned alot while I was doing them. I used my wired remote trigger and my exposure was as short or as long as I wanted it to be for that one particular shot. It was fun. The only research I did was figuring out a couple hours earlier where to put the camera .. of course, ppl sat on my yard (between the sidewalk and street) where I was going to go ... so next year I have to mark those sections off.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-gallery/364131-my-home-town-fireworks.html

Next year (or some other year) I may try the Detroit Fireworks sometime from the Canadian side (to get the Detroit Skyline backdrop), or maybe some other big city.

SnappingShark · Jul 7, 2014

You should get some cityscape / great foreground pics, and merge the fireworks in

But just remember to spend time with your family enjoying the moment, rather than being behind the lens all the time!
Great shots though!!

IzzieK · Jul 7, 2014

Don't stress over it. It is just one firework day although it IS an important day...if you composite your shots into the 2nd shot here and size them accordingly and using photoshop align, then you have both cityscape and fireworks at the same time.

ronlane · Jul 7, 2014

astroNikon said:
Nice shots.
It's all a learning process.
I shot my cities fireworks and learned alot while I was doing them. I used my wired remote trigger and my exposure was as short or as long as I wanted it to be for that one particular shot. It was fun. The only research I did was figuring out a couple hours earlier where to put the camera .. of course, ppl sat on my yard (between the sidewalk and street) where I was going to go ... so next year I have to mark those sections off.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-gallery/364131-my-home-town-fireworks.html

Next year (or some other year) I may try the Detroit Fireworks sometime from the Canadian side (to get the Detroit Skyline backdrop), or maybe some other big city.

BrightByNature said:
You should get some cityscape / great foreground pics, and merge the fireworks in

But just remember to spend time with your family enjoying the moment, rather than being behind the lens all the time!
Great shots though!!

IzzieK said:
Don't stress over it. It is just one firework day although it IS an important day...if you composite your shots into the 2nd shot here and size them accordingly and using photoshop align, then you have both cityscape and fireworks at the same time.

All sound advice. I spent a lot of time with my family and used my wireless flash triggers to shoot some of them, so I could sit and watch and just push the button.