Happy 4th of July!

Independence day has always been one of my favorite holidays - Thanksgiving, New Year’s, Cinqo de Mayo, the 4th of July, and maybe Christmas, not in any particular order.  The other 4 are all about the food to me, but the 4th is all about fireworks, crowds, and summer.  There should be more summer holidays. 

Here’s the secret to really powerful fireworks images - long shutter exposures.  Set your camera on manual, and stop down your aperture.  Make sure you’re camera is on a tripod - you won’t be able to do this hand held.  I like 1s/f11, depending on the night, with a film speed of no more than 400. Fireworks are burning super brightly, and you want to capture some of their great colors, and a lot of their motion.  That’s why you want an aperture of f8-f22.  The exposure time is more subjective.  Since you’re not trying to get a good exposure of the sky, or anything else around you, don’t bother metering.  Just leave the shutter open long enough to catch some of the motion that an exploding firework makes, without catching so much that it blurs. But I can never predict how long that will be, so here’s my fireworks trick.  I set the camera for a 15 second exposure, but cover the lens (with a hat or a paper plate) just until I see the rocket going up.  Then I uncover the lens, let the colors streak out, and place the plate or hat over the lens again.  That way I don’t have to worry about exactly when the fireworks go off.  I’ll add more later….

Okay, a rainy night, tough on fireworks all around. Truthfully, we didn’t go down to the Eastern Prom because we thought they would be washed out, but I hear they still went off without a hitch.  Send me a link to your own images if you got anything good.  I’m posting a panorama of the Eastern Promenade with fireworks from last year instead. 

I’m sorry I wussed out this year, as I always love Portland’s fireworks display.  I guess there’s always next year….