Fireworks

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Tonight we went down to a Firemans Carnival in a nearby town because they were having their 4th July Fireworks. Various towns have their fireworks on different nights anywhere up to a week away from the 4th.

We thought we'd give this one a try because it was on the 3rd. Being summer the fireworks dont get to start until quite late once its dark, so going on the 3rd with the 4th being the holiday the next day means you dont have to get up early in the morning with the kids who havent gone to bed until 11:30.

So we find somewhere to part several streets away and walk to the carnival with all our camping chairs and the tripod etc only to find its all on a slope and the fireworks are at the back with a small area to sit and watch and nobody else has chairs... its 3 hrs at least until the fireworks so I wander the streets back tot he car to ditch the chairs and the tripod. So even though I brought the tripod to a display the shots I ended up getting were all handheld or with the camera resting on my bag on the ground.

Lens got covered in ash though as the fireworks were directly above. I think if I take shots of fireworks so close again then I will put a cheap uv filter on the front to prevent chance of damage.

This is a 10 second expsoure. The longer exposures allow you to capture more of the explosion. Some shots with those fireworks where the exploding bits themselves explode again look cool because you see lines from the different explosions that were spread across time all in one image. You do get a bit of streaking on the fireworks though because as they explode and light up they are actually falling as well.

I chose this shot because I liked the mix of smoke, fireworks, the light on the bg trees and people