Shooting Fireworks - revisited

[aster]

Hi,

We celebrated a national day the other day and I shot some photos to capture the beautiful light beams and the fireworks.
I know this subject was discussed at one point in the past but hearing the others' thoughts wouldn't hurt so here's my question:

Some of the brightest lights in the frames actually have colours like green, bright blue in reality but they appeared as almost white due to longer exposure times. I tried many settings but can't decide on a premium setting.

Can you show some sample photos with your general setting approaches to give an idea please?

I used A100 and CZ 16-80mm for the shoot.

By the way, the team which orginized the lights and the fireworks is a family from Australia and I'm sure our Australian members can recognize who they are...It was a huge and beautiful event covering the Bosphorus and the Marmara Sea in Istanbul, so thank you everyone who helped it come through nicely! Excellent work!

Yildiz

[Dr. Harout]

Never mind the colors, Yildiz, the light shapes are beautiful in the second shot.
How about decreasing a bit the exposure in ACR, as well as the Highlights and adding a bit of saturation? Just a thought.

[aster]

Never mind the colors, Yildiz, the light shapes are beautiful in the second shot.
How about decreasing a bit the exposure in ACR, as well as the Highlights and adding a bit of saturation? Just a thought.

Thank you Dr. Harout,

You're right. The shapes are showing nicely. The event lasted for an hour only and light strenght changed within seconds with each firework and light combination they performed and I was left trying to make speedy changes to my settings which produced these frames a little different from the magnificence what the naked eye experienced.

I'm still working on them right now but you know how difficult it is, if not impossible to retrieve details and colour in parts that are burned with over-exposure. So, I have to find some eligible settings that are more helpful when such events are still rolling in full action. Once lost is always lost otherwise...and I don't think there's any software that can remedy such extreme losses yet.


Thank you,
Yildiz

[bossel]

I found it's a bit of hit & miss. You're working with exposure times from 5-30s. The problem is, you never know what will happen during this time. Will there be many lights or only few? Never know before. During my firework shootings, I had shots that were over exposed, under exposed and also correctly exposed. I haven't found a golden rule yet.

[aster]

Hi Bossel,

No golden rule yet it seems. Very hard to recover all those lovely colours and glittering golden halos that I could see with the naked eye but couldn't register on the photos.

Here's one that responded to some minor adjustments and that's because there was only this firework set-up in action! Relatively easy one to capture and the smoke from the previous fireworks retained some colour creating an aura...

Thanks,
Yildiz

[Dr. Harout]

Yildiz, you need a demolition squad to remove that chimney...

[aster]

Yildiz, you need a demolition squad to remove that chimney...

It's been on my mind since day one!
I even designed strange equipment which could enable me cutting those out of my scenery: like 50m-long hydrolic clippers that I can activate from the balcony; or design portable chimneys for those buildings that I can ask to be deplaced during my shootings!...etc. etc. (whoever designed and built them really did a terrible job because those are ugly chimneys)

For now, I think I'll just clone them out of the scene...

Yildiz

[Birma]

Hi Yildiz. I like the last one a lot - there is so much going on beside the fireworks - even the little light trails of the boats. Very colourful. This week will be one of the year's big occasions for fireworks in the UK, Bonfire Night (or Guy Fawkes night, around 5th November). When I was young the only celebrations at this time of year were about Bonfire Night, not Halloween. Now the USA's Halloween (pumpkins and ghouls) festival is taking over. I suppose at the end of the day they all go back to very ancient autumnal / end of harvest festivals. I would like to try some fireworks shots so I'll keep my fingers crossed that it is dry next weekend.

[Dr. Harout]

Hi Yildiz. I like the last one a lot - there is so much going on beside the fireworks - even the little light trails of the boats. Very colourful. This week will be one of the year's big occasions for fireworks in the UK, Bonfire Night (or Guy Fawkes night, around 5th November). When I was young the only celebrations at this time of year were about Bonfire Night, not Halloween. Now the USA's Halloween (pumpkins and ghouls) festival is taking over. I suppose at the end of the day they all go back to very ancient autumnal / end of harvest festivals. I would like to try some fireworks shots so I'll keep my fingers crossed that it is dry next weekend.

Good luck and happy shooting. Will wait for the shots.

[aster]

Hi Birma,

Thank you.

I would love to see the Bonfire Night as well! I hope the weather in your region will be promising so we can see some nice photos of the event from you.

Looking forward to the next week then!

Yildiz

[David Kilpatrick]

The areas where they normally do bonfires and fireworks are several feet under water here - the riverside haughs. It was a dull day, so I just did some work, and we went out for weekly shopping and realised half the country is flooded. I didn't stop to shoot the Tweed in spate (almost orange in colour from the soil washed into it) because it was raining too heavily. The salmon have had a really bad time getting upstream because the rivers have been low, now they will all have been washed back out to sea again

David

[aster]

I feel for the salmon who can't finish their annual upstream run. Usually, they are a wonderful sight to see when everything is going accordingly.
So, no photos of salmons swimming and flying upstream either in addition to no bonfire, David ? That's sad.

When something resembling fire or being on fire appear on your way, don't forget to take a photo as it'll still count...

Yildiz

[Lonnie Utah]

Try using a two stop ND filter in addition to your setting for longer exposure times without blowing out the greens....

[aster]

Try using a two stop ND filter in addition to your setting for longer exposure times without blowing out the greens....

Thanks Lonnie.
That sounds like a good solution.

Yildiz

[Lonnie Utah]

I know it sounds counter intuitive, making a night scene darker, but the $$ is in the length of the exposure.