Fireworks - Portland, Maine

knapph

Doesn't look like we are overwhelmed with firework shots yet, so here come a few. These were shot in Portland, Maine looking across Back Cove toward the city. There was heavy low fog so, in a few of the shots in the gallery you will see the bottom of the firework flare cut off.

Some learnings about shooting fireworks over the past few years. Everything on the cameras was on manual. We shot with the shutter on bulb and either f/8 or f/11 (usually). We pre-focused using the lights on the buildings across the cove. My wife and I both had a tendency to leave the shutter open too long - just one more blast please. When we did this, the fireworks would become too messy.

All post processing was done in Lightroom. The fog caused a lot of light pollution that desaturated the fireworks. To bring out the fireworks I moved the Black slider to the right until the sky became close to black. Next the brightness slider was used to brighten the fireworks. To help bring back the saturation that was lost in the fog I decreased the luminosity and increased the saturation of the colors in the firework using HSL sliders.


The gallery is here.









This shot shows the low fog layer over the city.

redleash

Nice set, Knapp. I like the last one the best--nice mix of reds and yellows and the top group of reds looks like a ferris wheel gone awry.

I'm glad to see all these fireworks shots--we had fireworks bans all over Texas and even the cities canceled them for the most part, at least in the Hill Country. I think the nearest fireworks show was in Corpus Christi.

Thanks for the tips on shooting fireworks too.

Lauren

Snowgirl

I echo Lauren's comments. There were fireworks here in New Brunswick but I fell asleep about an hour before they were due to be set off :cry

The shooting tips are also greatly appreciated. Maybe I'll catch some the next time there's an event here.

knapph

Thank you both.