Haverhill had their 4th of July fireworks display last night. I was there with my family, my camera and a concept to capture some abstract and dreamlike firework photos.
I read an interesting article on Petapixel yesterday morning about How to Shoot Defocused Fireworks and it made me want to try some of the techniques myself. My equipment was a Sigma 50mm 1.4, Canon 6D, remote shutter release and a wide-stance tripod to set up in the field. Based on last year, I knew roughly where the fireworks would launch and burst and was able to plan ahead. In hindsight, 50mm was a little tight for where we sat, but it is a super lens that performed flawlessly.
Overall, I am very happy with how these came out. Some shots were more successful than others but overall it was a lot of fun. I found my most interesting images didn’t just have a straight focus pull but used twists in both directions through the focus range. This allowed me to capture parts of the frame in and out of focus across time. It for some really interesting bokeh around focused areas.
How did I do it?
I used a fairly low ISOs between 100-400 to allow for longer shutter speeds between 1/4 sec and 4 seconds. The tripod legs were set wider than usual to keep it stable and the head was tightened down so nothing would move. The aperture range was f2 – f5.6. While my lens doesn’t have hard stops at either end of the focus range, the resistance changes so I could tell when it was at one end or the other.
For the slow defocused shots, I would start at one end and then twist over the whole exposure in one direction. For mixed defocused shots, I would twist back and forth two or three times in one exposure.
There are no filters or effects used on these photos, these were all captured in camera. The only adjustments were for color and brightness.
If you are interested in buying prints of these images they are available here – http://photos.jtruephotography.com/haverhill-fireworks-2018
