My Impetus

I was extremely excited for this years 4th of July Fireworks! I was pretty psyched to try out my Canon Digital Rebel XTi and see how well I could capture fireworks, by playing with the aperture and exposure settings. I live in Somerset, NJ and this year Franklin Park was having a celebration and setting fireworks off on July 3.

I packed up my XTi, Slik Sprint Pro Tripod, a Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM Lens, two 2 GB Transcend Compact Flash cards, a nice beach towel to sit on, and I was ready. I would have used my camera bag (which is an excellent bag by the way, the Canon Deluxe Photo Backpack 200EG, and quite a steal at <$50), but I couldn’t fit the beach towel in with all of the padding of the 200EG. So, I grabbed my trusty backpack and packed everything in with room to spare for a water bottle (which I forgot, and left on the kitchen table). My friend Mike was going to pick me up as we were meeting others there, and wanted to have the minimum number of cars.

I got there around 7pm and enjoyed some nice carnival cuisine, a gyro and souvlaki, as we waited for everyone to arrive. My close friends were going to meet us with their two young children, however the kids weren’t cooperating, so they had to cancel. As we were waiting for others to arrive, I tried to scope out some nice spots to set up the tripod. As this was the first time I was at this fireworks festival, I wanted some insider information as to where they would go up. I asked a few of the local police officers, and each one pointed me towards the far end of the complex. As I got closer, I saw a few older people already settled in their chairs, all looking towards the same section of sky. I moseyed on over and struck up a quick conversation, commenting on their apparent local knowledge of the fireworks area. I was rewarded with some nice tidbits of information about where they are let off each year.

I took the tripod out of my bag and began to set up, looking around to make sure no one was in my field of view, and realized I set up right in front of a couple sitting on the ground looking up at me. I promptly apologized and moved about 10 ft over to the access road, and realized I had the perfect spot. I wasn’t sure how close the fireworks would be, and I was hoping the 70-200mm would be the correct focal length choice. As I was aligning the tripod, a police officer walked by and said, “You couldn’t have picked a better spot”, so my confidence was brimming. I screwed the XTi to the tripod, flipped my baseball cap around, and took some quick shots of the area to make sure everything was working. As soon as I had flipped the cap, a man walked by, looked at my setup, and asked me if I was from the Press! I smiled and said no, but inside I was smiling like the Cheshire cat!

Now it was time to make sure I had the correct settings on the camera, and I fired off a slew of shots to check ISO, aperture, and exposure values. At about 9:15 the first BOOM of the launch could be heard, and we were rewarded with a beautiful purple explosion just over our heads – the fireworks spectacular had begun!

I shot off around 400 pictures, and posted the ones I liked the most on my Flickr! account. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t used ISO 400, but I think I did a great job for the first time with fireworks. I used various exposure time to capture the fireworks trails, however, sometimes the smoke caused some problems as well. I think the 2 second exposures came out the best. Also, the altitude of the fireworks continued to change. At times, I could keep the tripod locked and just shoot, however, not all went off at the same height. It was interesting to unlock the tripod, follow the firework shell up in the air, estimate the explosive point, lock the tripod, and get ready to take the shot as the firework exploded, all while trying to enjoy the fireworks myself!

Unfortunately, July 4th was a rainy mess (although I was able to get 18 in at Warrenbrook Golf Course in the morning) and there were no fireworks to capture that night. However, I spent the evening with my friends and we bbq’d some fine chicken souvlaki with tzatziki sauce (which must have been inspired from the carnival cuisine in Somerset) which I had prepped and marinated during the day after the round of golf. Sean’s Smokey Joe worked like a champ that night! You really can’t beat good friends, good food, and mojito’s!

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