elmirvalley

Happy Birthday USA

Canon EOS 5D Mark III

settings

Aperture f/16 ISO 320 Shutter 3/1 Focal Length 250/1

upload_date

Jul, 2015

Views

781

Likes

+32

Awards

Chatter Award

Staff Winter Selection 2015

Peer Award

Superb Composition

Absolute Masterpiece

Top Choice

Outstanding Creativity

All Star

Genius

Magnificent Capture

Emotions

Impressed

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Behind The Lens

Location

I took this photo on a Jericho beach in Vancouver, BC, Canada during the Celebration of Light festival that we have every year.

Time

This was taken sometime between 9pm and 10pm on a warm late July evening.

Lighting

It's a natural lighting created by the Fireworks and just city lights.

Equipment

I used my lovely Canon 5DmkIII camera with a Canon 100-400mm lens stabilized by a Giottos carbon fibre Silk Road series tripod and a Manfrotto 502 fluid head. I needed very good stabilization because the camera and lens together get fairly heavy sitting on sandy and windy beach. It is also a somewhat long exposure photo at 3/1 shutter speed. So there were a lot of variables that could cause camera shake. I also used a wireless Canon remote for that reason.

Inspiration

I have always wanted to take photos of fireworks. I saw it as a fun challenge. I like to test myself with technical challenges like that. This was a long exposure and stabilization challenge. I also used a super telephoto lens which added to it. But there's also the light, colours and geometry with fireworks that are very interesting and just plain beautiful to look at. It's also just very fun experimenting with long exposures.

Editing

Yes. It was a simple raw edit. Just added some clarity and and brought the colours up a bit.

In my camera bag

It would of course depend on the type of shoot I'm doing and where I'm going. Like I don't need a 400mm lens when doing real estate photography. But normally, I try to bring all my gear if I can. It's always better to have more and not needed and just to have options as well. In my awesome Manfrotto shoulder bag 40 you will find my Canon 5DmkIII with a great walk around Canon 24-104mm lens and a 100mm macro because I like to get up close to whatever I might find interesting. I also try to bring my 100-400mm lens wherever I can because you never know if you run into an eagle or somebody else fantastic that you can't really approach. It's also a great candid lens. Another lens I have on me is a 16-35mm which is just so beautiful to take wide shots with. I sometimes bring a 50mm as well. The reason for that is that unlike pretty much every photographer, I am not as interested in 50mm shots. I find speciality lenses to be, well, special. They create more interesting stories and more memorable shots in my opinion. I do have a 24-104mm which creates adequately beautiful photos at 50mm, 70mm, 85mm shots that I might have. Also in my bag I have a Canon Speedligh 600 EX-RT flash. Several batteries for camera (just because I have them) and AA spares for the flash. A remote shutter. I do also bring a CPL and ND filters and some memory cards. Those are just the things that I have in my bag normally. There are other things I like to bring which I won't list I guess hehe.

Feedback

Yes. The thing about fireworks for me in my city is that I pretty much have to stick to one spot and one lens. The reason is, I'm not going to drive around town to get different angles of something this big, which also lasts about 20 minutes. I wouldn't be able to get nice wide angle shot from how far I was from the fireworks, nor would I have been able to get a telephoto shot if I were close. 100-400mm worked great for me cause I could get very interesting closeups of separate little fireworks and I was still able to get a wide shot of the entire bay. When shooting fireworks you're going to lower your f-stops. I was going between f/8 and f/16 those were the sweet spots for me. Keep attention to your shutter speeds as you do your adjustments, because this isn't a handheld territory. You need good stabilization and remote shutters help a lot as well. Other than that, it's digital photography 101. Keep shooting and having fun. You learn on your own what works best for the results that you want to achieve.

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elmirvalley

elmirvalley

Happy Birthday USA

Behind The Lens

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