Harbor illumination and Fireworks

eoren1

Marblehead was recently voted in the top-15 of fireworks displays in the US and, to top it off, the show is run by volunteers and paid for entirely by donations :clap
I shot from near the lighthouse for the past two years and had some ideas for shooting from across the harbor this time. The show starts with a harbor illumination in which flares are lit all along the harbor. 15 minutes later, the show begins:


Technical: Canon 50D and EF-S 17-55 at 22mm f/11, 2.5 sec, iso 400. Couldn't push to f/16 or f/22 to get better stars out of the flares as even ISO 400 felt like I was pushing the limits on the crop sensor


Technical: Canon 50D and EF-S 17-55 at 17mm f/8, 5 sec, iso 400. Processed raw to +1 and -1 in LR with zeroing out the blacks and contrast on the +1. Taken into photomatix. Then played with contrast, blacks, noise reduction/sharpening

joe-bob

I like your second picture. Is that a ship in the center?

eoren1

Thank you and yes, it is. A huge one at that...

hendie

I like the atmosphere captured

Doug Solis

I really like your second one too. It looks like some of the people were entertaining themselves all the while the huge fireworks were exploding. I'm so used to looking at nothing but landscape its nice to see people in a shot, it makes you wonder what they were thinking and what some were doing, nice job. This is a question and not a nic but is there a reddish cast on the people because of the fireworks?

eoren1

Thank you Doug. I had people in my fireworks shot last year and loved being able to see what they were doing as the fireworks exploded overhead. I'm going to try to get people and the landscape with future fireworks shots.

As for the red glow, it's from a flare. As you can see in the first shot, flares line the harbor. A few people snag the flares and light them where they sit. I actually went over that area with the local brush in lightroom to desaturate it as it was too red before. This was a happy middle ground.

I have one more shot with even more people that I ended up posting at Other Cool Shots.