Independence Day

Well it is that time of year again. The Time when Americans get all hot under the collar with patriotism and they have to cool themselves off by firing off inordinate amounts of highly combustible rockets into the night sky! Fireworks!

So yesterday I went up to St. Joe to chill with a friend and watch their fireworks show (since I'm sure it was more interesting than staying here in Valparaiso). It was my first real attempt at doing some serious shooting of fireworks (I had years and years ago with my little point and shoot at the time, but that doesn't count). There isn't really much to be said about the composition of each photo, and the Exif data is basically the same for theme all (I did switch from f/16 to f/18 about halfway through, though). 

It was a good exercise in really learning more about low-light photography (which I already talked about in my previous blog post about the moon), and how the aperture really does affect it. I was shooting on the Bulb setting on my D7000, as well, and I could also tell how long I left the shutter open really affected the shots. 

One thing that should be said is that there was a pretty good wind coming in from the Lake (Lake Michigan) so that affected it quite a bit.

I'll start with the pictures of single fireworks that I somehow managed to get:

   

For some reason the blog format won;t let me put small pictures in the middle here, too, even though there is obviously enough space for them. I even tried manipulating down in the html, but to no avail. Maybe I just need to make my template wider. Probably.

Anyways, it was a really nice night right by the lake. It was probably 103F or so at my house, so I decided that I had to get out of there, at least for a little while. So we drove up to Michigan and chilled with my friend Steve. Here is his personal website: http://stevekbooth.com/

He took some great photos too, with his Canon 1D Mark 4. You can see some of them under his "Blog" tab, then follow the link to his flickr account.

I really like this one on the Right ->

IT looks like some sort of fire palm tree

This one on the right, again, is two of those starbursts that I like. I think it might have been when I was stopped down to f/20 or so, as its a bit darker

And now for some Finale pictures:

The finale was a bit bright for the cameras, though, especially because of the massive amounts of smoke in front of the fireworks.

This one was the very last one that I took, right as the finale ended

->

These next few are my personal favorites of the ones that I took (therefore they shall be in larger format than the tiny pictures above)

 I really really like the blue explosion in there, it is almost perfect. When I saw this one on my camera I was like "Aww, I wish I could have gotten that all by itself, because that's awesome"

 I really like the big spark trails in this one coming out from the almost perfectly formed fireworks. Lovely.

 Oh! I spoke too soon! I did get a nearly perfect shot of a single firework!

And this one is just a good combination of everything.

I had a really enjoyable time yesterday taking pictures (even though I did get home at like midnight and didn't fall asleep until 2am and I had work at 7am this morning). I am pretty proud of the pictures that I got, too.

And that's all for now. I have a Manfrotto Tripod Coming tomorrow, so I'll let you all know how that works out for me (maybe include a quick thing about it in my Lowepro Flipside 400AW review that I plan to do this weekend).

Catch you on the Flipside,

Kevin

TV: Chopped

Movie: Ted

Game: Rayman Forever

Music: All.I.Can. Soundtrack

Food: um, I'll let you know once I make it.