More Fireworks: High Point, NC

[DavidM]

From the "Uncle Sam Jam" in High Point, NC on July 4th. Haven't posted any pics in a while so I thought I'd join the fray of other fireworks posters...

This was harder than I thought it would have been, mostly in dealing with the timing of things. A 4-second exposure really takes about 8 seconds to process if you have Long Exposure Noise Reduction turned on, which I do. The complete set of posted shots from this event can be viewed at:

http://www.pbase.com/david1461/2005_07_04

In the meantime, here's a couple samples:

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[heiko]

Hi David,

Wonderful shots - I too love fireworks. I once had the pleasure of seeing a 1 1/2 hour firework performance by Andre Heller, back in 1984 in Berlin (he did it for my birthday, and over a million people joined the celebration :lol: ).

Those fireworks of yours almost seem like flowers. I love the second one on your website, which looks like a palm tree. You managed to get some wonderful shots, particularly at the beginning, when there was no or little smoke.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[eng45ine]

Very well done, David. Composed well and wonderful clarity. Frame those images!!!

 

[DavidM]

Heiko:

Thanks for commenting. There wasn't much of a breeze that night, so the smoke was definitely becoming a problem. I suppose I could reduce that somewhat by pushing the gamma down (a lot) in post, but that would also have some detrimental effects to the rest of the image I'm afraid. Do you have other suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[DavidM]

Thanks, Frank. I stuck with shooting 4-second exposures this year as a test. Although I skipped last year, the year before I tried 6-seconds and decided that was a bit much.

The nice thing this year was that using the D2X allowed me a bit more flexibility for cropping the images. I just wish I could have gotten a better vantage point that would have allowed some foreground in the images.

Thanks!

 

[eng45ine]

David,

Whatever your vantage point was for shooting...you did a heck of a job. I shot a 4 seconds as well with f/18 and it worked out okay for me. I can't wait until next year to give it another try.