A little less experimental then other's works, but I wanted to try some telephoto (punched-in) firework shots this year. This past Saturday came a great opportunity as my local town was putting on their show. I know, it's not even July yet... but discussion is for another set of forums! 🙃
I opted to shoot with my z6 over my z7ii for the slightly better low light capabilities. Handheld, though resting on my knees (or shoes) while I sat on the ground. 1700 photos taken and culled down to top 100. I wanted punched-in, no trees, just sky. I was sitting pretty much right under the display; so super close, too close in some cases (tree line).
f/4, iso 800, 1/125s. 70mm. I think of 70mm on the very low-end of the telephoto range as I'm use to working 200mm+, but I was super close and anything over 70 was 'too close' for where I was sitting.
After the culling and development process, I was fairly pleased with the results.
The top two especially appeal to me. The second one is my fave, nice comp, lush colour, detail, texture and the perfect moment.
Thank you very much Chris!
WOW! These are GORGEOUS, Joe! I love them especially #1,#3, and #4. The color capture and clearness is amazing! I love the all the little dots of light (glitter or sparkles) that you captured so clearly. Really amazing. I am now wanting to give fireworks a try! Thanks for also posting your settings and procedure. That's a big help. 1700 photos!!! By the way, did you have it on a continuous shooting drive?
Thank you Jennifer! There were sooo many photos I just had to cull most of them. The 100~150 I have remaining I should do a second culling to get down to the top 25 or so. Would make a great collection.
I was close enough I could see the shells being launched into the air; then would guess when they were about to burst and started taking rapid shots for a few seconds... then off the shutter button.. then back on for the next set of shells. I am happy I had the z6 since the z7iis files are nearly twice as big. Ended up using ~45GB of card space for the 20 minute show.
I was in high burst, so 12 (or 14?) frames per second, and I used continuous full sensor focus when a firework went off.. then didn't focus again for a few minutes.. I was at f4.. but should have bumped that to f8 and gone a little high iso.. there was almost zero noise at 800, so 1600 would have been easy enough. I did use PureRaw2 to clean the files before doing some basic adjustments. Then done. Mainly just batch-processed the "top picks".
I would suggest a tripod and a remote trigger. Then use burst mode. Then you can sit comfortably and use the remote to trigger bursts of shots while still enjoying the show.
Hope there is another show in a neighboring town soon, so I can get in some more practice. :)
Looking forward to seeing more of your practice, Joe. Thanks for clarifying on how you shot them. I appreciate that. Also, you should put your best ones into a short slideshow with music then post on Youtube!
That is a really good idea. :)