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Today is Independence Day here in the USA. Rather than go out to a fireworks show tonight I decided to share these shots from last year’s fireworks in Waterfront Park in Louisville.
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This year for the Fourth of July fireworks I tried a new technique that I read about in several various posts around the web. The basic premise is to use focus to create blur around a fireworks explosion. I set my focus at just short of infinity and then refocused after tripping the shutter. I used shutter speeds of 1 and 2 seconds at f5.6 and f8 to experiment with this technique.
Click on any image to enlarge it in another window.
Click on any image to enlarge it in another window.
Click on any image to enlarge it in another window.
Click on any image to enlarge it in another window.
Click on any image to enlarge it in another window.
Click on any image to enlarge it in another window.
Click on any image to enlarge it in another window.
I finished all the images in Aperture 3 and really cranked up the sharpening both in the RAW file and in the finished image. I also played around a lot with the Saturation, Luminance and Range sliders in the individual color channels to intensify the colors.
All in all I am better satisfied with these fireworks images than any I have attempted in the past. I think I’ll work on refining the technique the next time a fireworks opportunity presents itself.
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This past week I attended the Fourth of July event in Louisville’s Waterfront Park to capture some fireworks images. While waiting for the fireworks show to begin I wandered around the park looking for images that spoke to the idea of festivals and the attendant support services that are needed whenever large groups of people gather for a celebration. The sky was leaden with the remnants of our unrelenting week of rain and thunderstorms so I went in search of some color to shoot.
As I strolled through the park I came upon the food vendors area and was immediately drawn to the scene you see here. I liked the graphic quality of the signage and the lights on and in the funnel cake vendor and decided to create a composition that incorporated it. I found a place behind the food wagons that also held some promise of a strong foreground element. I set my tripod up and shot this image because I enjoyed the strong diagonal lines and the contrast of colors between the booths and the park’s water feature. I also liked the way the stainless steel rails contrasted with the concrete and the angles that they created.
I shot a three frame bracket set using +2, 0 and -2 EV to be sure that I had a wide dynamic range to work with. Back at my computer I first took the three RAW frames into NIK Sharpener Pro and pre-sharpened them. I then opened the three images in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I merged them into a HDR image. I applied the Deep 2 preset and then adjusted the amount of tone mapping and contrast to suit my taste. After the initial tone mapping was completed I returned the HDR image to Aperture 3 where I adjusted the individual color channels to bring out the reds and yellows of the signage. I also added some additional adjustments to the contrast and sharpened the image before adding a small vignette to it.
