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Sep, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This was a photo I took during a 4th of July celebration while I was still in college at Montana State. We were at a fairground watching fireworks accompanied by an orchestra.Time
It was still fairly early in the night time; it must've been around 8 pm or so.Lighting
Everything was completely natural. Minimal moonlight (if any); the whole sky was lit only by the exploding fireworksEquipment
At the time I was shooting with the Canon EOS Rebel T5i. I believe this one was shot with just the 18-55mm kit lens.Inspiration
I always love capturing fireworks in as many ways possible. Here, we were nearing the end of the show so everything was grander and brighter. I saw this person in front of me enjoying the show and the light from the fireworks was casting a nice silhouette. I wanted to capture that moment.Editing
Very little post work was done for this. I cut out some grain from shooting with such little lighting. Also I just bumped the colors and contrast up a bit. Other than that, not much.In my camera bag
I have since moved up to a T7i. I have my kit lens and a 24-70mm lens as well. That's my main set up, I will usually rent a wide angle lens if I'm going out and shooting a landscape. But most importantly, I have a set of ND filters, a polarizer, and a set of Graduated NDs for things like sunsets.Feedback
Decide ahead of time what goals you have; know what you want to capture and what you want it to look like. Generally I will decide what my ISO and aperture are going to be ahead of time. For this photo I was sitting somewhere around the 800-1600 ISO range, with my aperture wide open, if not, almost wide open. For a shot like this where everything is going to consistently be the same distance away I know I can work on one focal plane, so being wide open to capture all that light won't cause and issue. For focus, set that ahead as well, leave it on manual/tape it down so it won't move. You've only got one shot to get all these pictures, each happening within split seconds, you can't be worrying about focus. Finally, framing is everything. This is where having an idea of what you want comes in handy. Side note though, be able to adapt, and you can find moments like this one I captured.
