Follow-up: Fireworks shot from a boat

[Earguy]

Some of you may recall I posted a question about shooting fireworks from a boat (you can read it here).

So we went last night. Beautiful night, had a fun time. As far as photography goes, it was a bust.

First, instead of taking us to the world-class Grucci display, with the towering Atlantic City skyline in the background, our captain took us to flat Ocean City. He said that the Coast Guard wouldn't let us close enough to the Atlantic City site.

If you look at that previous thread, you'll see the Ocean City ferris wheel featured prominently, lit and whirling. This year during the display they turned the ferris wheel off. So Ocean City became really flat and tiny in the background.

Then of course was the issue of shooting from a boat. Our boat was fairly large, and seas were calm. I brought my tripod, but I realized there was no way it'd be useful. So instead of the standard low-ISO, mid/small aperture, 3-10sec shutter, I had to adjust.

I used my IS lens wide open, varied the ISO between 400 and 1000, varied the shutter speed between 1/15 and 1/25, and hand-held as steady as I could.

Put it all together, it was pretty disappointing. By the end I quit trying to take stills and turned my 60D to video. That turned out okay, though reviewing it I realized I zoomed in and out too much.

Anyway, lesson learned is that if you want to get pictures from a fireworks cruise, first make sure you're going where you think you're going, and try some other methods from mine.

Here's a few of my best shots, not anything I'd want to print and frame like the ones I posted in the first thread:

[scoundrel1728]

Not sure what you could have done about not being at the site you were expecting. Most likely, the captain fully intended to take you to the original destination but he himself found out too late that he couldn't. I don't know whether the captain can be faulted for that. Considering the obstacles you had to overcome, I salute you on your resourcefulness in being able to post anything presentable at all.

Although your tripod would have been useless for exposures in the one-second range, it might have been helpful for holding your camera steady enough for the videos and probably would have been steadier than holding the camera by hand. Any motion components would have been much slower than those from handholding and, with proper software, might have made exposure stacking a useful alternative. For this show or ones like it, you would have needed to make composites to get decent still pictures. If you could have incorporated exposure bracketing as well, that would have been better. I don't know whether commercial software actually exists to combine image alignment and HDR techniques, but I don't see any theoretical reason why it can't be done. Whether a big enough market exists for commercial viability of such software is a legitimate issue, but that is a practical rather than a theoretical problem.

[golfer]

Just a thought as I have no experience shooting from a boat, but I wonder if long exposures would still be useful. The long exposure shows the trail of the fireworks which might just be a part of the boats movements as well. It would also add more "life " to the photo as they do appear to be somewhat lifeless.
IMO, the trail of the firework and multiple rounds give the photo the life like appearance you might want and the boats movement would just be a part of the exposure.
Hope this is helpful, as in no way am I qualified to do anything else but share a thought or two.
Best wishes.

[snapgeek]

I bet it was tricky shooting those photos from a boat. I personally haven't shot fireworks from a boat and also have a hard time finding a location anywhere as neat as the one you have there, but then again I live in Iowa.

[stef@apl]

Thanks for the followup!

[mkgregory]

Sorry you didn't end up with what you were hoping ... but I gotta say, that 2nd picture is so cool, I feel like I could reach in and pluck those fireworks right out of the sky! I really feel like I'm looking at something 3 dimensional, not a flat picture. Good salvage job

[Earguy]

Originally Posted by mkgregory

Sorry you didn't end up with what you were hoping ... but I gotta say, that 2nd picture is so cool, I feel like I could reach in and pluck those fireworks right out of the sky! I really feel like I'm looking at something 3 dimensional, not a flat picture. Good salvage job

Thank you, you're very kind. It is one of the better shots from the session, but again, not good enough to display.

Originally Posted by golfer

Just a thought as I have no experience shooting from a boat, but I wonder if long exposures would still be useful. The long exposure shows the trail of the fireworks which might just be a part of the boats movements as well. It would also add more "life " to the photo as they do appear to be somewhat lifeless.
IMO, the trail of the firework and multiple rounds give the photo the life like appearance you might want and the boats movement would just be a part of the exposure.
Hope this is helpful, as in no way am I qualified to do anything else but share a thought or two.
Best wishes.

Opinions and tastes vary of course, but this is a shot that was a result of a longer exposure. Note the lights on the shore, and how the rocking of the boat smeared the fireworks upward, "wrong direction." Not the look I was going for.

[Steven G Webb]

Sometimes the bug, sometimes the windshield. Sorry for your disappointments. The second image is pretty dang spiffy considering all you were working against.

Steve

[_Provo_]

Night scenes for this type of work is long exposure photography.
Having IS turned on in my test has made so so images so I turn it off always.

I think what you presented isn't bad at all I think the set looks pretty good to me.

I uploaded 2 more shots at the end of the fireworks tutorial from the other day.

[BobC164]

Shooting anything from a boat is hard. The natural roll of the ocean even on a calm night creates substantial blur. I didn't have much luck either as I got to the party late.

I guess this would be my best shot


RJC Photos_2012-11.jpg by bobcreef, on Flickr