You Know What We Haven’t Seen In A Long Time?

Fireworks pictures!

This is the first of four sets from the July 4th, 2009 game at Anaheim Stadium, with my beloved Angels (who won that night) against the Baltimore Orioles.

I don’t recall any specific attempt to get any of the effects that show up in these pictures, but from the look of them:

• I was not using a tripod (typical for a game since they won’t let you bring one in)
• I was letting the camera pick the exposure time
• For some reason (probably a screw-up on my part) the focus was ever so slightly off. (Never leave your camera on auto-focus when shooting fireworks. It will go nuts and try to focus in and out and in and out, spending half of the time trying to lock onto a quickly moving set of bright lights on a very dark background. Switch the focus to manual, set at infinity, and leave it there — if they’re not in focus then, you’re too damn close to the fireworks and you’re gonna die!)

These factors lead to:

• The bright trails being jiggly (but in the most beautiful patterns at times)
• The pictures sometimes being under exposed (which can make very stark and high contrast)
• And many of the pictures have a combination of sharp features and blurred features as the depth of field for the focal point was very shallow.

I like these sets very much, I hope you do as well.