Thursday, July 9, 2009

Oooooo! Ahhhhh!

Seeing as how it's Friday (even if the date above does say Thursday, this is a Friday Picture Post), and I guess it's time for some more pictures. As it's easy to see, these were all shot last Saturday night from the balcony of my good friend the Disaffected Scanner Jockey.

It was the first time I'd taken my new camera out for a spin at night and, well, I'm pretty darn happy with the results. The fireworks on the National Mall lasted about 13 minutes by my watch and, during that time, I shot about 200 or so pictures. For those interested in the technical details: they were shot from a tripod, using a remote shutter release, with an f8 aperture, shutter speeds ranging from 1.6 seconds to 2.5 seconds and an ISO (film speed equivalent) of 100.

Now, in no particular order, onto the pictures!


Got a little of the Washington Monument in this one





A close-up

An extreme close-up



I really like the feathery effects from this one



Next year, I'm planning on being on the Mall, even if I have to camp out there. I want the shot of the fireworks exploding right behind the Washington Monument. Just 359 days to go...

8 comments:

elle dubya said...

this is why i want a remote for my rebel. even with a tripod, my hand can shake enough to screw up the best lined up shot. great pics!

charlotteharris said...

Those are prety spectacular! I watched the Leesburg town fireworks this year and my companion bragged that "they rival the Mall's" -- after seeing your pics... I think the Mall has Leesburg BEAT! Very nice!

Shannon said...

Gorgeous! These pictures have talked me out of ever moving out of my apartment.

FoggyDew said...

ella - I thought about buying one for the new rig on Friday and bagged it. Then, Saturday afternoon around 2, I decided I'd made a mistake. To fix it I had to actually, gasp!, travel outside the Beltway to a camera store (and spend $80 in the process). Both the trip and the money were well worth it.

Charlotte - Hey! Long time, welcome back. Even if Leesburg's were twice as long, they still don't have the backdrop of the monuments. Win for D.C.!

Shannon - Well, if you could get one on a higher floor on the same side, yanno, that would be even better. I'm thinking the seventh or eighth floor. Still in all, a great view.

Liebchen said...

Those pictures look so good! My point and shoot did NOT do the fireworks justice.

FoggyDew said...

Liebchen - Point and shoots are pretty great (they can fit in your pocket), but they do have their limitations. Drop me a line and I'll be happy to give some pointers.

Sebastian Anthony said...

Ooh, pretty!

I always shy away from tripod/firework stuff because it does my back in, bending over.

But I guess if you pre-aim and use a remote it would be quite easy-going!

FoggyDew said...

Seb - Highly recommend the remote release. Mine is a cable, but if'n I wanted to spend $140 I could have gotten an IR wireless remote. It's so convenient, in fact, I carried on a conversation the whole time I was shooting these. The only thing I did is change the exposure a couple of times (you don't want to see what 5 seconds did, shudder).