Wednesday, July 8, 2009

If you play with fire,

you will get burned. Translation: If you try and take pictures of fireworks you will not get the wonderfully perfect picture you desired.

That would be what happened to me this fourth of July. I decided to try and get some awesome firework pictures with that new Nikon i got. I thought, how hard can it be? Then Stephanie posted some tips and how to set your Nikon on her blog, so i set up my camera using her recommended settings and set off with a big smile on my face.

Then we got to the place where we would be viewing them from. My first thought: its kindof far, but o well. So me and Randi set up our cameras and prepared for the show, both of us, still smiling ear to ear, expecting some great shots. Then the fireworks started and we started shooting, or should i say, we tried. Very quickly our sounds of cheer turned into "arghhhh" and "ughhhhs" and "ahhhhhs" and "OMG i missed it, its blurry, how come it wont take!!!!"

And when the fireworks came to their conclusion, you could see Randi and I watching, with our cameras nicely packed into the case, talking ourselves into thinking it was the distance that caused us so much trouble and not our skills. ;)

On that note, would you like to see some of the pictures i did get out of this not so great experience? ha ha, that's what I thought! So here you go- my attempt at fireworks, year one newly retitled- "It was my first try so its no big deal that I failed I mean the camera is new and all and I need to get used to it better so maybe next year I will get better ones...."


This first picture is not cropped at all so that you can see how far we were from them. My standard lens was zoomed in all the way and that's as close as I could get.
All the rest have been cropped in picnik.
My picture of the grand finale.Fireworks at the "after party" And i think i actually like this one, lol.

And last but certainly not least: My favorite picture of the night, the ever so cute, Landon!

This year was a pretty fun fourth of July, but next year when I play with fire I hope to be more prepared, as so I won't get burned ;)

Love,

14 comments:

  1. Aw, I think they are great! Even though you don't like them this year...maybe you'll have more luck next year. It was also my first year shooting fireworks :)

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  2. I think you did awesome on your fireworks! I think the only difference is you used a smaller exposure. What were your settings on your camera? I used 4 seconds on most of mine.

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  3. These are WAY better than mine! Next yr we will go to the city dept so we are closer and they will be AWESOME! It was still fun though;)

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  4. Those are still pretty good!!! Way better than any firework pics I've ever taken!

    Thanks for being such a great reader and always leaving such lovely comments! You warm my heart! :)

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  5. Dea, I think they are beautiful--nice and crisp, even if a little far away. You are too funny! I toyed with the idea of taking pics of the fireworks. Next year I need to grab the tripod and go for it!

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  6. That Landon is pretty cute!! I really like your fireworks pictures... they are hard to do! And you did well!!

    God bless-
    Amanda

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  7. I think they turned out pretty darn good. So what if you weren't so close, it's a learning game and I am sure that come new year's you will be ready!!!

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  8. These turned out good girl!
    I kept changing my settings looking for just the right one, just figured Id edit!! ;)

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  9. Exposure is how many seconds you have your lens open to capture light.

    If you are shooting in Manual Mode on your Nikon it is the dial that you turn to adjust exposure you and turn it left or right. You can also shoot in shutter priority mode but I like Manual because you can adjust any and all settings. I hope that helps! It is pretty easy. I had to look at my manual to figure out how to adjust it because my other camera was different

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  10. These are great for a first try! I have not mastered fireworks yet either..

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  11. Maybe this will help. I found the definition online.

    In photography, exposure is the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium (photographic film or image sensor) during the process of taking a photograph. Exposure is measured in lux seconds, and can be computed from exposure value (EV) and scene luminance over a specified area.

    In photographic jargon, an exposure generally refers to a single shutter cycle. For example: a long exposure refers to a single, protracted shutter cycle to capture enough low-intensity light, whereas a multiple exposure involves a series of relatively brief shutter cycles; effectively layering a series of photographs in one image. For the same film speed, the accumulated photometric exposure (H) should be similar in both cases

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  12. Those are great pictures!
    I took the same kind of pics on the fourth...only moments before I dropped my camera :/

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  13. check out those eyelashes! what a cute little guy :)

    your fireworks shots are fine. mine didn't turn out half this good. (and you'll notice i didn't post a single one).

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  14. They turned out pretty good though! I went with high hopes this year as well and was disappointed with mine too... I think next time I'm going to bring a tripod.

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