Bay City Fireworks Festival - July 4, 2015
This was taken on the last day of the 3-day Bay City (Michigan) Fireworks Festival. I used a shutter delay of 5 seconds. I personally like the red, white and bl...
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This was taken on the last day of the 3-day Bay City (Michigan) Fireworks Festival. I used a shutter delay of 5 seconds. I personally like the red, white and blue color scheme that came out on this shot.
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Aug, 2015Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This was taken from the viewing area on the western approach of Liberty Bridge, Bay City, Michigan (US). Viewing up (south, roughly) the Saginaw River. In the distant background is Veterans Memorial Bridge (behind it is the launch area for the fireworks). To the far right is the festival ride area.Time
This was taken about 10:30 pm (local), on July 4, 2015. The fireworks show normally starts about 10:10 pm, lasting (on this, the third and final night) about half an hour.Lighting
Basically, I can't really add anything about lighting, other than the 'ambient' lights from the festival ride area (far right), the small lamps on the boats clustered together in an 'island,' and the actual light from the fireworks burst itself. In this particular case, I just happened to get lucky, and catch a nice red, white and blue collection.Equipment
I'm currently using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS20. My tripod was a rather flimsy one, which my sister had given to me a year earlier. I obviously left the flash off. My settings were: ISO 160, f-Stop f/8, and shutter delay of 5 seconds (I don't have a remote shutter release - so the trickiest part was 'clicking' the shutter button, then removing my hands while keeping any shaking of the setup to a minimum).Inspiration
One year prior to this (2014), on the Wednesday before our local fireworks festival weekend (it's a three-day event, with the final night being our biggest and longest display - but not necessarily occurring on the actual 4th of July), the local newspaper (The Bay City Times) held a free fireworks photography workshop. Until then, I'd have merely tried a point-and-click approach. However, the two instructors (reporter/photographers) gave our group a lot of valuable advice - mostly for taking photographs of fireworks, but also for general picture taking as well. A primary bit of advice is to use a tripod - practically mandatory if you'll be using any sort of time-delay. The most valuable advice though, is to compose your shot. Until then I would have just picked some spot at random and started clicking away. However, thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that one of the better spots might be viewing from one of our bridges (Liberty Bridge being the closest, most logical choice) - the water would help reflect the bursts, and there would also be plenty of other objects (boats, city lights and the festival ride lights) to provide a 'feel' to the photograph (rather than just having a shot of a fireworks burst in the sky, with nothing else to 'gauge' it against. Keeping this in mind, I returned to this location the following year, and this particular shot was one of the results.Editing
For the most part, my 'editing' is not very intensive. On occasion I will try to tweak a photograph, but normally I'll take whatever comes 'out of the can.' My photograph editing software is Corel's PaintShop Pro (I think this was version X5). I will first 'straighten' out a shot. Next, I'll crop it. My third step is to use the software's "one-step noise removal." Finally, I use a "one-step enhancement" tool (basically adjusts contrast, etc.). I almost never remove any unwanted objects - preferring to cropping out such things. I do not personally like the idea of actually 'altering' a photograph to a large extent.In my camera bag
My camera itself, two spare batteries, and one or 2 back-up SD memory cards. On occasion I'll drag my tripod along (though lately I've started using a monopod for regular photographing of events or scenery).Feedback
As mentioned above - the primary thing is to have a tripod to keep your camera as steady/motionless as possible. If your camera can accommodate a remote shutter release device, that would probably be a nice investment. A low ISO setting would be preferable, though I really can't say what a higher setting would achieve. I'll confess, I really don't 'understand' the concept of aperture/f-Stop settings, so I can't add anything useful along those lines. As for the shutter delay - I've tried a delay of 4 seconds, but that doesn't really seem long enough to catch the large scattering of the bursts themselves. A delay of 6+ seconds tends to clutter up the image (which may be desirable on occasion - such as a grand finale). Five seconds seems like a nice magic number - collects enough of a burst, without being cluttered with remnants from other bursts. Finally, if you have the time, scout out potential viewing locations - consider what may be visible in the background, think about what the lighting conditions at that viewing location are (for example, you probably would not want to be directly under a street lamp in this instance), ensure whether that location can be legally used (in other words, be wary of trespassing). Other than that - make sure your batteries are charged and your memory card is clear. Good luck.
