Fireworks Images - Follow-Up 01

[Albert Sim]

Good day to everyone.

Here are my fireworks results. Please feel free to give your C&C and I welcome it most.
FYI, this event is the Pyrobeat Festival organized in conjunction with the Malaysia's National Day. It scheduled out to 6 dates i.e. 30&31/08, 13,14&15/09 & 02/10 is the final. Countries participating are Malaysia, China, France, Korea, UAE and USA. If you like you can log-in to : http://www.pyrobeatfestival.com/

Camera setting : ISO 100, f/16, Bulb mode with remote release.
Exposure Manual, Focus Manual set to Infinity, AWB.
Shoot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Well, fellow photographer, if good, give a little compliment, if bad... your hardest C&C please.
Thank you.
(To view all the shots, please visit pg 7 & 8 of : http://fcsim5.wix.com/albertsimphotography )

Cheers

[William W]

Here are my fireworks results. Please feel free to give your C&C and I welcome it most.Shoot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Good work! Well done!

One tip - consider straightening the buildings.

Photoshop > Filter > Distort > Lens Correction

Rough Indicative:



WW

[Polar01]

It would appear that you figured it out nicely, which lens did you like using the most as you were wondering which would be best. Myself I like #1, #5 and #7 with 7 the best I think because of the blues tones.

Cheers:

Allan

[Albert Sim]

One tip - consider straightening the buildings.

Photoshop > Filter > Distort > Lens Correction

Rough Indicative:



WW

Hi Bill,
Thank you so much for your advice and it looks so much better.

[Albert Sim]

It would appear that you figured it out nicely, which lens did you like using the most as you were wondering which would be best. Myself I like #1, #5 and #7 with 7 the best I think because of the blues tones.

Cheers:

Allan

Hi Allan,
Images #1 to #4 were shot with 24-70mm and #5, #6 & #7 I used 70-200mm. All go with my D800 to take the advantage of its high resolution.

As for the f-stop, I tried f/8,f/16,f/18 & f/22. f/16 as fas as this concerned, is the best aperture, f/8 overexposed, f/18 not bad but f/22 is not that suitable as it slows down the exposure taking consideration that the fireworks bursts continue within seconds.

As to which lens is best for fireworks, my experienced from this outing is, in actual fact, depends on how far away you are from the displays. . And how close the shots you wants it to be.

Best Regards,
Albert.

[William W]

. . . As for the f-stop, I tried f/8,f/16,f/18 & f/22. f/16 as fas as this concerned, is the best aperture, f/8 overexposed, f/18 not bad but f/22 is not that suitable as it slows down the exposure taking consideration that the fireworks bursts continue within seconds.

As to which lens is best for fireworks, my experienced from this outing is, in actual fact, depends on how far away you are from the displays. . And how close the shots you wants it to be.

good oh! good work! well done!

[AB26]

Stunning Albert, very well done.

Horizon?

[PRSearls]

Those are very good fireworks images... good color and focus. Your comment about choosing a focal length based upon your distance from the bursts agrees with my experience. My 24-70 is perfect at my normal shooting distance. I used a 35mm WA this year (the 24-70 was out of action) and it was not quite wide enough to capture the very large bursts.

It's fun to shoot fireworks since you don't know what the sensor will record in a Bulb time exposure. The 30 minute display I shoot (Fourth of July, Rockford, IL) have shells fired about every 2 seconds so I limit my exposure to 5 to 10 seconds otherwise the composition gets too crowded, IMO. The finale is quite spectacular and almost numbs one's senses with continuous bursts and sound. It does not still photograph very well: too many bursts and lots of smoke but the crowd (and I) love it!

Paul S

[Albert Sim]

One tip - consider straightening the buildings.

Photoshop > Filter > Distort > Lens Correction


WW

Sorry Bill,
I tried to work on this but failed. PS CS5>Filter>Distort> (no Lens Correction), so I go PS CS5>Filter>Lens Correction> (can't get it done too).

If you don't mind, can you teach me about this technique? Your advice is always highly appreciated.

Thank you.

Best Regards,
Albert

[jcuknz]

You did good Albert ... indeed

If you cannot follow how to straighten the buildings you could do what I did and since there is black all around them I just did a loose selection and rotated the selection four degrees left.

Also had to fiddle with reflection and copied them and moved the layer into position under the buildings after rotating them the same 4 degrees..
edit possibly I should have rotated the right hand building 5 degrees
edit 2 didn't line reflections up properly

[William W]

I tried to work on this but failed. PS CS5>Filter>Distort> (no Lens Correction), so I go PS CS5>Filter>Lens Correction> (can't get it done too). . . can you teach me about this technique?

OK.

I did that using an old version of PS.

Also I am not now at a computer that is loaded with CS5 I think this computer has CS2 or CS3 on it.

But what you need to do - is get to a screen in Photoshop that looks like this:


and allows for VERTICAL PERSPECTIVE ADJUSTMENT, ROTATION . . . etc (see RH side)

*

Then I adjusted:

• the VERTICAL PERSPECTIVE = -53 (brings the buildings at camera left into Vertical Alignment)
• ROTATION = 1.00 (your horizon was not level)

Here:



Please note that the above will skew the shape of the fireworks – especially those at the RH side of the frame, but that doesn’t really matter.
For a more complicated, scene the adjustments can be very arduous.

*

Then I cloned the (mostly Black) remaining area of the scene:


*

Once skilled at the lens correction for a simple scene such as the fireworks (i.e. very few verticals to adjust), it is only one minute PP, at the most. But as I mentioned for a complicated scene, especially if taken with a W/A Lens it can take some detailed adjustments. There are some automatic lens correction programs (for Barrelling / Pincushion), and also for de-fishing a fish eye lens, but actually I like using this method.

***

The key to making any adjustment a lot easier is to have the camera and the lens: square to the scene, from the get go.

This (below) is the JPEG SOOC from the EF24/1.4 used on an EOS 5D.

The image was taken for another reason, but it serves as a good example of ensuring the lens is square, especially ensuring the lens’s axis is parallel to the ground line, if we do not want any converging (or diverging) vertical lines.



*

SO - Irrespective of any Barrel/Pincushion distortion that YOUR lens might have, for THAT SHOT your lens was POINTING UPWARDS (i.e. the lens’s axis was NOT parallel to the ground line) and that is why the Building’s Vertical edges were CONVERGING. But as the buildings were at the edge of the frame it appears as though they are just “falling over”.

WW

[pnodrog]

In CS6 it is in the filters list as Lens Correction (or Shift+Ctrl+R) and when the window appears at the top of the right hand panel select "Custom"

[Rob Ekins]

Sorry Bill,
I tried to work on this but failed. PS CS5>Filter>Distort> (no Lens Correction), so I go PS CS5>Filter>Lens Correction> (can't get it done too).

If you don't mind, can you teach me about this technique? Your advice is always highly appreciated.

Thank you.

Best Regards,
Albert

Albert,
I think you will find what you are looking for under the "Custom" tab once in Lens correction.

Here is a good video on the subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kTXtwBaq-I

Robbie.

EDIT: Beaten to it..

[William W]

^^ . . . thanks x2

[Albert Sim]

• the VERTICAL PERSPECTIVE
• ROTATION

Thank you so much Bill. I got it done, right?

[Albert Sim]

Here is a good video on the subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kTXtwBaq-I

Robbie.

EDIT: Beaten to it..

Robbie,
It's really a very useful info indeed. I love it.
Thank you.

[William W]

I got it done,

good oh! looks good.