Fireworks and my Nikon – II

The 3rd and 4th attempts have been successful to a certain degree! Most of the photos were junked due to bad timing, meaning that I missed the moments when the fireworks ignited. It is important that the camera catches the point when it just ignites, because the photo will capture a electric dandelion with a bright center.

Set your camera to ISO 50 or 100, shutter speed of 2 – 4 seconds and aperture to F8.

Remember that the grand finale at the end of the show will be a glorious show of many explosions, so your shutter speed shouldn’t be too long… all my pictures at the end of the show were over-exposed.

Here are some of the better pictures that I have. I hope you enjoy them!

New Caledonia

France

Fireworks and my Nikon

Here’s my story on the attempts to capture fireworks on my Nikon camera during Singapore’s 2006 National Day.

My first attempt on 5 Aug was at Esplanade.  As my family was having dinner outside, we decided on a restaurant just 1 minute away from the bay, thinking that we could just walk out and watch the fireworks when it starts.  Oh how wrong that was!  When I came out of the restaurant, it was so crowded that all I could see were the palm trees.  Needless to say, I have got nothing decent to show.  I’m too embarassed to show them.

My second attempt was on 8 Aug.  This time, I chose a more remote location at Marina South.  The view was not obstructed, and seems to be the choice of many photographers.  I have 100 over pictures this time, but still not decent enough.  The shutter speed seems to be too long, and photos show too much of a trail in the fireworks.

I still have 2 more opportunities.  Yup, Singapore is having 4 fireworks this year.

One thing I found out was that most cameras have their own proprietary formats for RAW files.  Hence I had problems trying to download the raw files from my Nikon D50 to my Linux machine.  After searching on the Internet for a while, I found Dave Coffin.  He who has written dcraw to decrypt/decompress RAW file formats from so many camera vendors.  Now I can see the terrible pictures that I took with my camera!

Thanks Dave!