Nicolas Demers

So I learned a lesson: on Wednesday, (just like the previous Wednesday) I was experimenting with relatively short exposure times, about 1/4 sec. That had given me good results the first time, but this week I wasn’t doing so well. China’s show didn’t have a lot of big showy ‘splosions like Canada’s, instead focusing on short, small bursts that disappeared quickly. I thought it was quite neat and original, but a lot more challenging to shoot. I ended up being disappointed by most of those photos, and had to rethink my strategy.

See, I realised fireworks aren’t just about colour and light, they’re about motion too. Short exposures don’t really show them off properly, and that’s if I get a good shot. Plus, there’s too much pixel noise. But wouldn’t you know, my camera has a setting just for fireworks? I’d tried it only once on the 23^rd, then abandoned it though it produced an awesome picture. But yeah, it really does work a lot better than all my fiddling. I’ll keep that in mind for next year.

Here, see for yourself.

Last Wednesday I saw the first installment of the Celebration of Light. It was amazing, though far too short. On the bright side, I found a good spot to set up my camera–not as close as I would have liked, but I had an absolutely perfect view.

Taking these photos was a bit of a challenge. My camera’s ISO sensitivity only goes up to 800, and I had to do a lot of fiddling with exposure times and whatnot to get the best shots. And for some reason my camera sometimes just wouldn’t focus properly. I eventually had to trash about half of my photos, but oh, well, that’s what digital cameras are for. Had to do a lot more post-processing than usual, too; apart from the standard cropping and resizing, almost all the pictures had noise that needed to be smoothed out.

But it was all worth it. My first fireworks pictures, folks!

Let there be light!