Sunday, July 22, 2012

Firework

Every Friday night at about 7:45pm, one of the hotels in Waikiki, the Hilton Hawaiian Village, sponsors a 3-5 minute fireworks show. Prior to my NYC trip, the one thing I wanted to do most was to photograph these fireworks. But, for various reasons, the opportunities to do so were always foiled! This past Friday, I was FINALLY able to do it! Reese and I had gone over the concept of how to shoot fireworks months ago.  During one of our lessons, he used moving straws to demonstrate how the "bulb" setting would capture the movement of the straws, which were supposed to represent the fireworks being shot up in the sky and exploding. The demonstration made grasping the concept a piece of cake...the hard part about photographing fireworks though, is the timing. In order to capture nice fireworks, you have to know when to close the shutter. Also, white/yellow fireworks are terrible to shoot because the image gets blown out. Therefore, when you see a lot of those exploding one after another, the probability of that photo turning out great is slim. 

I think I need more practice shooting fireworks. Good thing there are at least 52 opportunities each year to try!

All photos shot using ISO 100, f/8, shutter set to "bulb"

Don't these fireworks look like palm trees?


4 comments:

  1. Excellent for your first try! There is 4th of July and New Year's Eve too.

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    1. Thanks! Yes, there are also those other two holidays...that's why I said "at least 52 opportunities". If I had my way, I'd try every week until I got "the" shot. Lol!

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  2. Nice..that's a good spot for fireworks viewing. i like the first one the best.. good timing..

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    1. The first photo was actually taken within the first 30 seconds of the show. That's why there is hardly any smoke in the photo. I like that one too...especially since Diamond Head is visible.

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