Revamping

We're going to be spending time revamping the blog in the next coming months. In the meantime, here are some photos from the 4th of July fireworks show in Oak Ridge, TN. It was a fantastic show.

Performing before the fireworks was the Oak Ridge Community Band. This group of volunteers work tirelessly to bring the best in musical experiences to the Anderson County area. Everyone should take the time to attend one of their concerts. You will come away impressed.

Fireworks in Lafollette 2010

Hey all,

I love the 4th of July. We give thanks for our Nation and enjoy great fireworks.

These were shot at Woodson's Mall in LaFollette. The Cityof Lafollette sponsored te show and it was really nice.

Shooting fireworks can be frustrating, because there is still an element of luck in the shots.

But here are a few things I've learned to improve my chances:

1. use a tripod.

2. long exposures get cool sweeps of color but the ambient glow off the smoke can cloud the image (see pic 3)

3. short expousures get a cool "flower" like effect but are hard to time

4. focus manually, the autofocus has fits trying to get the lights focused before they disappear

5. don't trust the automatic exposure - the dark sky will fool the meter. Fireworks are so bright a low iso will get them and keep your background dark. The image below was made a 1/30 sec and iso 500 but the meter was calling for 3 sec at iso 3200

6. take lots of images at different settings and see what you like (don't be afraid to drop bad shots just learn from the culls)

Here is a HD video of the grand finale shot with my Nikon D90

Stay safe and have a great 4th.

Peace,

John