Wesley R. Elsberry

Falconer. Interdisciplinary researcher: biology and computer science. Data scientist in real estate and econometrics. Blogger. Speaker. Photographer. Husband. Christian. Activist.

4 thoughts on “Fireworks

  • 2008/07/13 at 2:44 pm
    Permalink

    Wow, nice pics of the fireworks. I was in the hospital visiting my sister-in-law and brother and their first child was born the night before. So I was watching the fireworks from her room. The displays came from different suburbs as we were located pretty high up in the hospital. It’s was pretty awesome!

  • 2008/07/13 at 4:39 pm
    Permalink

    Nice pictures. My one attempt at photographing fireworks didn’t turn out so great.

    What kind of camera do you use? I want to move to digital, and am looking at the Canon Rebel digitals, so I can use my existing lenses. But I am a bit put off by the $700 price tag for the 10 megapixel version and positively depressed by the $900 price on the 12 megapixel.

  • 2008/07/14 at 2:29 pm
    Permalink

    I used my Nikon D2Xs camera this year and a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. I think overall I was better served previously by using my Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 lens. I had the ISO at 100, aperture at f/16, and used a 15 second exposure. The absolutely critical part of doing this is a good tripod. I used a Star-D copy of the Tiltall design.

    The aperture setting needs to be small enough that the fireworks don’t simply overwhelm the photosites. That would mean not recording the color of the fireworks. On consumer digicams with a manual setting, use the lowest ISO available and the smallest aperture (usually f/8), and you may want to add a polarizing filter or neutral density filter. Many consumer digicams will allow you to make up to 30 second exposures, so doing something like the fireworks shots should be possible for many even if you don’t have a digital SLR.

  • 2008/07/16 at 7:31 pm
    Permalink

    Great pictures.

Comments are closed.