With New Year’s Eve upon us once more, I suddenly realized that because I now own a camera, I’m required by law to take pictures of the fireworks. It would prove quite the challenge. I had never taken pictures of fireworks before, and I obviously didn’t get any time to practice. I read some tips online, set up my tripod, and hoped for the best.
There was a nasty fog that had lingered all throughout the day on December 31st, and by the time evening rolled around it didn’t seem like it would be going away anytime soon. It would provide me with an interesting new dimension to an already challenging situation. For reference, this is what I had to work with:
I couldn’t see anything more than a few blocks away. My original idea of taking wide-angle, long-exposure shots to capture fireworks from all around the horizon was quickly thrown out the window.
I ended up shooting fireworks that were close by, all the while fidgeting with the camera’s settings to try and find something that worked. I shot at 55mm, f/8, ISO 100, and varied my exposures between 2 and 6 seconds. Post-processing was done in RawTherapee. Here’s a couple of shots that are sort of decent:
Most of those images are cropped. I realized while shooting that the 18-55mm lens I was using (intended for my original wide-angle idea) was inadequate, and couldn’t get close enough to fill the frame. I really should have used my 55-200mm from the beginning, once I noticed the fog wouldn’t be going away. Lesson learned, I guess.
Next year, let’s hope for no fog.