Monsoon Lightning and fireworks

Jason Sampson · Jul 10, 2002

I've posted a my first ever attempts at taking photos of a lightning storm and fireworks. I'd like some feedback on how to make them better next time, especially the fireworks shots. I think some of them are over exposed, but when I tried shorter exposure times, they didn't appear right either.

All of these shots were taken with my 7i in bulb mode on a tripod, and unfortunately, without a remote shutter release, so there is some shake in some of the shots. Most of them were with the shutter stopped down to F8, but the occasional F5.6 or 6.7. Manual focus set to Infinity, color saturation +3 and contrast (not like it matters much) to -1.

The lightning shots were usually 5-15 second exposures max, but basically until I got a good bolt. The fireworks were taken pretty much the same way. Focal length was 28mm for all of the lightning shots, and about half of the fireworks shots.

All of the images on pbase have been resized, thus stripped of their EXIF information (the program I used bulk resizes but cannot retain the EXIF information). Anyone have a good bulk resizer? I found a free one called Jpeg Resizer that works well excepting for the EXIF header loss.

http://pbase.com/jgsampso/july_4_2002
http://pbase.com/jgsampso/az_lightning

Thanks
jason

Juan Trujillo · Jul 11, 2002

I suspect that there is nothing much to improve. Your shots look like the best ones I've seen on the subjects at least taken with digital cameras. I also feel that some are burned much like it happens to fireworks shots that I've made but I suspect that is due to the nature of the subject itself: There is a big contrast between the most shining part and the rest of the scene so the higligts are burned. I have no idea if it will help but next time I'll try using a ND filter, or a polarizer (I have no idea if this may help) Maybe a polarizer averages somehow the light?

Maybe shooting farther from the show helps muting somehow the highlights? http://www.photosig.com/viewphoto.php?id=116057

Probably with our cameras the only aspect to improve is the sharpness, a remote release is defnitely a must and proper focusing at exactly infinite for the focal lenght.

And finally I was playing with some shots in PhotoShop and I see that the blue channel is the less burned out, the red channel the most. I don't know yet how this may help to rescue shoots but it may be worth to investigate further.
Regards,
Juan

Jason Sampson said:
I've posted a my first ever attempts at taking photos of a
lightning storm and fireworks. I'd like some feedback on how to
make them better next time, especially the fireworks shots. I
think some of them are over exposed, but when I tried shorter
exposure times, they didn't appear right either.

All of these shots were taken with my 7i in bulb mode on a tripod,
and unfortunately, without a remote shutter release, so there is
some shake in some of the shots. Most of them were with the
shutter stopped down to F8, but the occasional F5.6 or 6.7. Manual
focus set to Infinity, color saturation +3 and contrast (not like
it matters much) to -1.

The lightning shots were usually 5-15 second exposures max, but
basically until I got a good bolt. The fireworks were taken pretty
much the same way. Focal length was 28mm for all of the lightning
shots, and about half of the fireworks shots.

All of the images on pbase have been resized, thus stripped of
their EXIF information (the program I used bulk resizes but cannot
retain the EXIF information). Anyone have a good bulk resizer? I
found a free one called Jpeg Resizer that works well excepting for
the EXIF header loss.

http://pbase.com/jgsampso/july_4_2002
http://pbase.com/jgsampso/az_lightning

Thanks
jason

Jason Sampson · Jul 11, 2002

Thanks for the tips. I was actually a good half mile away from the show when I took these shots. All were taken with focus set to infinity, but you're right they could probably use a little more sharpnening and a remote shutter release.

Are you suggesting that I raise the intensity of the blue channel to get more color out these? I'll try that and see what becomes of it.

Thanks
Jason

Juan Trujillo said:
Maybe shooting farther from the show helps muting somehow the
highlights? http://www.photosig.com/viewphoto.php?id=116057

Probably with our cameras the only aspect to improve is the
sharpness, a remote release is defnitely a must and proper focusing
at exactly infinite for the focal lenght.

And finally I was playing with some shots in PhotoShop and I see
that the blue channel is the less burned out, the red channel the
most. I don't know yet how this may help to rescue shoots but it
may be worth to investigate further.
Regards,
Juan

Jason Sampson said:

I've posted a my first ever attempts at taking photos of a
lightning storm and fireworks. I'd like some feedback on how to
make them better next time, especially the fireworks shots. I
think some of them are over exposed, but when I tried shorter
exposure times, they didn't appear right either.

All of these shots were taken with my 7i in bulb mode on a tripod,
and unfortunately, without a remote shutter release, so there is
some shake in some of the shots. Most of them were with the
shutter stopped down to F8, but the occasional F5.6 or 6.7. Manual
focus set to Infinity, color saturation +3 and contrast (not like
it matters much) to -1.

The lightning shots were usually 5-15 second exposures max, but
basically until I got a good bolt. The fireworks were taken pretty
much the same way. Focal length was 28mm for all of the lightning
shots, and about half of the fireworks shots.

All of the images on pbase have been resized, thus stripped of
their EXIF information (the program I used bulk resizes but cannot
retain the EXIF information). Anyone have a good bulk resizer? I
found a free one called Jpeg Resizer that works well excepting for
the EXIF header loss.

http://pbase.com/jgsampso/july_4_2002
http://pbase.com/jgsampso/az_lightning

Thanks
jason

Click to expand...

MikeTTF · Jul 11, 2002

I like the sense of scale in many of the lightning photos. Especially number 200. Seeing the ground lights (and buildings) really adds more of a perspective as to how large the strikes were.

Mike

Jason Sampson said:
I've posted a my first ever attempts at taking photos of a
lightning storm and fireworks. I'd like some feedback on how to
make them better next time, especially the fireworks shots. I
think some of them are over exposed, but when I tried shorter
exposure times, they didn't appear right either.

All of these shots were taken with my 7i in bulb mode on a tripod,
and unfortunately, without a remote shutter release, so there is
some shake in some of the shots. Most of them were with the
shutter stopped down to F8, but the occasional F5.6 or 6.7. Manual
focus set to Infinity, color saturation +3 and contrast (not like
it matters much) to -1.

The lightning shots were usually 5-15 second exposures max, but
basically until I got a good bolt. The fireworks were taken pretty
much the same way. Focal length was 28mm for all of the lightning
shots, and about half of the fireworks shots.

All of the images on pbase have been resized, thus stripped of
their EXIF information (the program I used bulk resizes but cannot
retain the EXIF information). Anyone have a good bulk resizer? I
found a free one called Jpeg Resizer that works well excepting for
the EXIF header loss.

http://pbase.com/jgsampso/july_4_2002
http://pbase.com/jgsampso/az_lightning

Thanks
jason

Jeff Royal · Jul 11, 2002

Great shots as they are!

Try IrfanView for batch resize (or batch almost anything). EXIF info is maintained. This is truly a beautiful program for image browsing, etc. So many functions and so simple to use (freeware I believe).

-Jeff R

Jason Sampson said:
All of the images on pbase have been resized, thus stripped of
their EXIF information (the program I used bulk resizes but cannot
retain the EXIF information). Anyone have a good bulk resizer? I
found a free one called Jpeg Resizer that works well excepting for
the EXIF header loss.

Thanks
jason

Jason Sampson · Jul 11, 2002

Thanks, I had not thought about that. I'll keep that in mind next time.

Jason

MikeTTF said:
Mike

Jason Sampson said:

I've posted a my first ever attempts at taking photos of a
lightning storm and fireworks. I'd like some feedback on how to
make them better next time, especially the fireworks shots. I
think some of them are over exposed, but when I tried shorter
exposure times, they didn't appear right either.

All of these shots were taken with my 7i in bulb mode on a tripod,
and unfortunately, without a remote shutter release, so there is
some shake in some of the shots. Most of them were with the
shutter stopped down to F8, but the occasional F5.6 or 6.7. Manual
focus set to Infinity, color saturation +3 and contrast (not like
it matters much) to -1.

The lightning shots were usually 5-15 second exposures max, but
basically until I got a good bolt. The fireworks were taken pretty
much the same way. Focal length was 28mm for all of the lightning
shots, and about half of the fireworks shots.

All of the images on pbase have been resized, thus stripped of
their EXIF information (the program I used bulk resizes but cannot
retain the EXIF information). Anyone have a good bulk resizer? I
found a free one called Jpeg Resizer that works well excepting for
the EXIF header loss.

http://pbase.com/jgsampso/july_4_2002
http://pbase.com/jgsampso/az_lightning

Thanks
jason

Click to expand...

Jason Sampson · Jul 11, 2002

Thanks. I'll check into that tool. It's certainly got a positive review on download.com.

Thanks again

Jason

Jeff Royal said:
Try IrfanView for batch resize (or batch almost anything). EXIF
info is maintained. This is truly a beautiful program for image
browsing, etc. So many functions and so simple to use (freeware I
believe).

-Jeff R

Jason Sampson said:

All of the images on pbase have been resized, thus stripped of
their EXIF information (the program I used bulk resizes but cannot
retain the EXIF information). Anyone have a good bulk resizer? I
found a free one called Jpeg Resizer that works well excepting for
the EXIF header loss.

Thanks
jason

Click to expand...

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Monsoon Lightning and fireworks

Jason Sampson

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Juan Trujillo

Forum Enthusiast

Jason Sampson

Forum Enthusiast

MikeTTF

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Jeff Royal

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Jason Sampson

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Jason Sampson

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