Fireworks compilation

[Jim D]

Like many pilots I tried some fireworks shots on the 4th. I stayed just over my house. Our neighborhood is fireworks crazed (I actually wish they were banned like most nearby cities - we always worry about fires). I shot with a 64 ND so that I could use a long exposure, increasing my chances of catching something, but didn't get any decent single shots. This is a compilation of shots where I copied the fireworks from a number of shots and layered them in Photoshop over a base shot then blended with lighten mode.

 

[Mav.phant.inspire]

That’s a good idea!

 

[Rockowe]

Huh?
ND64?
Unless I have the whole filter concept incorrect, why would you use such a Dark Filter at Night ???

My Understanding would be to use No Filter - not to darken the view further.
At night, one would try and create MORE light not less - … Like to Increase your ISO - and push a Manual longer exposure say 2 secs to suck up all the light possible (For a stills view).
… But these are fireworks - They Create their Own light - … and Way more than normal street lights... so setting a long Exposure - more than say 2 - 3 seconds may dampen the 'BLAST' (explosion) effect.

Your pic is awesome though - …

Please can someone explain why an ND 64 would be used for fireworks?

 

[Kilrah]

Night is dark, but fireworks are bright. Can preserve the colors instead of ending up with the fireworks coming up all white due to overexposure. 64 was probably a bit too much though.

Doesn't help much with long exposure here since... well what's dark isn't really exposed in the first place.

 

[Jim D]

Like Kirah said. I didn't want to use a high f-stop which would degrade the picture (6.3+ on Mavic). When shooting fireworks with my real camera a setting of 1/200th at F8 on iso 100 would be good. I wanted to shoot at 8 seconds (to maximize time to catch random fireworks) at f4. All a fun experiment, and the exposures came out fine (I prefer underexposed with good saturation to blown and washed out). The 64 ND from Polar Pro is actually a 6 stop ND.

 

[Cymruflyer]

ND 64 is far too much and an 8 second exposure is also far too long for fireworks because the light trails don't ever last half that long and leaving it open that long lets in too much light, even at night with fireworks. Going up with an f-stop is far better than a very long exposure if you wish to reduce the degrading affect to an image. The image looks like one of those special effects overlay kits you can buy to add firework effects to your image. I say that because I see firework images overlayed on top of other firework images and that is not really simple to do with a load of your own images and then try and cut them all out in photoshop to overlay.

I'd like to see several examples of your own individual shots that you took, to see how you were able to cut each of those separate images out then overlay them on to one large image. Could you show us say four different images of your original exposures that you used so we can see the before shots, prior to your compilation above?

I'm not saying this is not your work, but these look awfully like my fireworks overlay pattern kit that I use to create a fireworks looking effect to any photo I have, when I wish to create that sort of effect.

 

[Kilrah]

ND 64 is far too much and an 8 second exposure is also far too long for fireworks because the light trails don't ever last half that long and leaving it open that long lets in too much light, even at night with fireworks.

That's completely wrong. When there is no fireworks there is no light, you can leave the shutter open as long as you want (well not exactly, but you get the point) without a change in the picture (apart from the blur on the lights on the ground, which we see here).

I say that because I see firework images overlayed on top of other firework images and that is not really simple to do with a load of your own images and then try and cut them all out in photoshop to overlay.

It's very easy, he even said how in his post (the Lighten blend mode is the key, dark parts of the images don't affect the result, no need to cut anything). Piece of cake.

 

[Jim D]

Cymruflyer, I wanted the longer time so that I would have a better chance of getting a burst (as I said in the OP these were random neighborhood fireworksaround my house, not a real show where you can count on pretty steady bursts). I didn't try any video, just RAW photos. I wasn't going for any light/detail in the ground (boring neighborhood houses). When I processed the RAW images I jacked up contrast, lowered the blacks even more, and raised saturation. I wasn't anticipating any kind of super shots, just messing around, and that's what I got - nothing special, but fun to mix into this artistic interpretation of the night.

I'd never heard of those special effects overlay kits, which look pretty cool, but I promise that I didn't use them!

 

[Cymruflyer]

Thanks for the explanation. Generally when the shutter gets left open for several seconds, the sensor picks up more noise in the dark areas, that being the sky. Therefore I was suggesting that the longer the open shutter the more the sensor will pick up noise on the image when shooting in low light situations.