Battersea Fireworks

[Jim Kuo]

Jim Richardson said that "If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff" (source)

I think it's somewhat true for me. I find that once I spent the effort getting to places, the pictures I took tend to be more interesting, at least to myself.

Last night we spent significant effort travelling long distance, fighting huge crowds, and suffering from lack of sanitary facilities, to get to Battersea park to see the fireworks display. These are the results.

#1, bonfire in the background, don't know what the guy was pointing at, but he seemed very excited.

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7, we had to take a long detour home, due to lack of direct public transport. We passed Westminster area on the way. I applied the vertical correction+rotate trick Hamish showed me on these two. I think the buildings do look "straighter" than in the originals.

#8

I think all of these (except the first one) were taken with the Tamron on the 28mm end.

Do the firework pics count as light painting?

Jim

 

[Brian Moore]

Some wonderful images in that set, Jim. I love the bonfire one and also Big Ben. Fireworks #3 and Westminster are cool, too!

 

[David M. Byrne]

Nice work Jim. What was your technique for capturing the fireworks?

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Love the bursting fireworks shots - with the tree silhouettes they are just stunning!

Night time London shots are lovely as well - assume you had a tripod with you then?

 

[Jim Kuo]

Thanks Brian, David and Chris.

Yes, I had my tripod. It was an intentional night shoot, so I made sure I had my tripod with me. So the evening's commitments include, long commute, carrying heavy equipments, hunger, cold, lack of toilet, and you wouldn't believe how many people walked into my tripod despite that I purposely stood next to other photographers (with tripods) to form some kind of barrier...

David, the technique was initially trial and error. I started at ISO 100, around F11 and used aperture priority mode, but the camera insisted to use shutter speed of over 30 sec. This wasn't going to work since each individual segments of fireworks disappear from the sky rather quickly. Eventually I found the exposual around 4s gave the light trails I wanted, so my goal had been trying to find a combination that allowed me to shoot at around that shutter speed. I ended up using ISO 400 and F9 in M mode. I had to monitor (by eye) how bright the sky was to change the shutter speed from 1s to 4s. The entire display was 20 mins so luckily, I had time to muck around.

It was the first time that I took firework pictures. I would love to hear suggestions and tips on how to handle this kind of situations better .

 

[Dave Moss]

mine were taken on manual the exif data is
Exposure 2
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 9.8 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire
X-Resolution 240 dpi
Y-Resolution 240 dpi
Software Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.5 (Windows)

 

[Jim Kuo]

Wow David, very cool firework shots and the fire shoot was amazing!

I had my Tamron with me (28mm), so I had to stand quite far back and couldn't use a lower ISO value than I had used...

 

[Dan Cattermole]

Whoa whoa whoa!! Stunning set there dude.
My fav is the first and last, but they're all stunning Jim.
Does it count as light painting you ask?... Well, yeah, the light has created a trail, so yeah... IMO Light painting.

 

[Jim Kuo]

Haha, I thought so, but I didn't make an uncorroborated claim without verifying with the light paint master first

 

[Dan Cattermole]

Thanks Jim, first time I've heard that, light master? Hahaha!! It's normally 'weird dan' or 'crazy *******' by certain individuals on here

 

[Dave Moss]

The fire shot was almost a total accident i was taking the camera off the tripod from the firworks and I looked down saw the shot and just pressed the shutter settings were not even looked at it was hit and hope lol

 

[Jim Kuo]

It was a happy accident

 

[Paul Lange]

Weird Dan? Whys that, I can't imagine why.

I think the 2nd and last stand out for me, really nice. Jim a while ago I forwarded a link for the downloads area to an exposure calculator. I've never tried it but you can use it to calculate your manual exposures for fireworks. I presume it works and it's free anyway so nothing to loose.

 

[Jim Kuo]

Thanks Paul, I will check it out.

 

[Pete Askew]

What a superb series Jim from the wonderful scene-setter of the fire to the reflections on the buildings. Fabulous!

 

[Jim Kuo]

Thanks Pete

 

[Hamish Gill]

Yeah, great shots Jim!
I have a shot just like the one of the chap in front of the fire!

 

[Jim Kuo]

I am glad you like them

The fire shot wasn't intentional. I was aiming at the bonfire and he got in the way!

Happy accident

 

[Hamish Gill]

heres mine from a few years ago

 

[Jim Kuo]

I like your background better, as it has more details.

But the guy should try to be more animated