Twilight Blooms

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Ahhh… After 3 months… I post again… I should update often, I know (Banban told me… a couple of times…). Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to take new photos ’til just this February. I could have posted some of the old ones I’ve got but they didn’t seem to appealing to me anymore… and I was really lazy. I know I almost always start all my articles and photos with “It’s been a long time…” and I don’t think that will change soon.

Anyway, I will post some of the new photos I’ve got and from this I think I found a new technique in posting that will make me do it frequently and not be as irksome as before. I now plan to post a lot of photos in one post especially if they are all taken in the same time and place (duh… how could I take a photo of two different places at the same time?). So without much ado here is my first photo post for this year.

The following photos were taken from the First Philippine Pyromusical Competition in the Mall of Asia in Pasay City last February 14, 2010. I was there with Winston, Mica and Hannah. It was the first of, I think, 5 weekends of presentation. There was an opening act where most of my shots were crap and then followed by the first contestant, America where my shots considerably went much better.  Not that the opening act was crappy, rather I was unprepared.

Two things to take note of the shots are that they were taken handheld and on a bulb setting. A bit hard but not impossible as you can see with my *cough* amazing *cough* shots. As you will also notice, ISO was set in the lows and shutter is near 1 second. This is because when taking photos of fireworks, to be able to get the light as it explodes and become the fantastic glory that it is, you need to have the sensor expose for around a second. Why a second? Well, most fireworks that was in the show had the lifespan of 2-3 seconds. Most of the wonderful things happen during 0-1 second and the fireworks’ fading and death during the 2-3 second.  Then why bulb? It’s because the 2-3 second I said is an average. It could be shorter with smaller fireworks or it could be longer fireworks that have a lot of effects. So why the low ISO? Well, you see, these magnificent Chinese creations are explosives with a lot of bang and light. Though nothing compared to a strobe, floodlights or the sun, fireworks are still very bright. If you expose your sensor for even just a second at ISO 800, it’s gonna be really bright. In fact, if your camera can talk, it’s not gonna say anything ’cause you already fried it’s brains with the intense light. And lastly, why handheld? It’s because I don’t have a tripod.

I call this post as “Twilight Blooms” ’cause it’s night and the fireworks seem to “bloom” into the night. You will also notice that most of the shots I chose have the fireworks looking like flowers. I’ve also cropped some of them to be at the bottom of the frame to give it a “grounded” look so that it looks more like a flower. I think that’s about enough crap from me, so here are the shots.

Note: There are settings which are similar with the photos. I will place them here so that the post won’t seem so crowded.

Camera: Nikon D60
Lens: 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
Exposure Compensation: ±0EV
White Balance: Auto
Picture Control: Vivid

Shutter Speed: 1.2secs   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 200   Focal Length: 32mm

Shutter Speed: 1/3″   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 200   Focal Length: 24mm

Shutter Speed: 1/4″   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 400   Focal Length: 35mm

Shutter Speed: 0.625sec   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 400   Focal Length: 36mm

Since this might make this page take so long to load and I dislike when the scroll bar reaches that short length, so I gonna make two more continuing posts. Click here for the second and here for the third.