Today is July 4th – so a lot of people in the US will go to a fireworks display tonight and I thought I’d add a small blog post about how you should be using a tripod to take your fireworks photos but that there are still chances for pretty awesome fireworks photos without one.
Like I told you back in March, I’ve gotten into a bit of Lomography obsession and own several analogue cameras by now – one even has permanent residency in my purse! On two occasions (New Years and a local fair) I tried taking some analogue photos using my Diana F+ and my Diana mini. Both times I did not have a tripod with me and simply thought I’d experiment to see if there was even a chance of get half-decent photos that way.
Both times I did not expect to get great results but I really liked the results. The crazy thing is – with both types of the Diana, you only have a limited amount of control. You can choose the ISO of course through the film you choose (on New Years I knew I was gonna try, so I took a ISO 800, the other time was by chance and I had an ISO 200 film in the camera. Madness, I know!). But other than the ISO, you can simply choose between four (Diana) and two (mini) Apertures – as well as setting the shutter speed to set (I believe it’s 1/125s) or bulb mode.
I set it to the narrowest aperture (for cloudy days) and then set it to bulb mode and simply held up the camera and opened the shutter for a little while. I didn’t count the time but I varied it to get some different exposures. Like I said, it was simply to experiment, I had no idea how it would turn out.
Since it was an anlogue film, I had to wait for the lab to process the film (agony!) and when I got the results back, I was really surprised.
These photos are from New Years eve – as you can see, they are not your usual fireworks phots but I think they are pretty cool nontheless!
In June, there was a fair in our town (like every year) and a friend and I were able to get seats – in a way. The fireworks are always from the side of the castle ruins and between where they shoot and the spectators are is a small lake that is still there from the moat from the Middle Ages. We were so early that we got to sit down at the side of the lake and while we were sitting there waiting for the Fireworks to start when I remembered that I had my Diana mini in my purse. So I thought: why not! So I tried my hand again at taking some fireworks shots. With similar results to the first time *yay*
So even though you should use a tripod when shooting Fireworks but if you don’t – you can try anyway. Maybe the results will be good, maybe not but you will only know when you try it 🙂
Oh, and if you want real advice on how to take Fireworks photos, Scott Kelby has a post up today 😉
