17 replies to this topic

[makmanos]

Hi folks, my name is Manos and this is my first post in the forum. I have been mostly reading and silently appreciating the work and info that everybody shares so thanks to all for that. I am an amateur with photography by any definition and I would like to dedicate more time to it.
I did manage to get a nice spot across from the Macy*s 4th of July NY fireworks display yesterday though and this year I am happier with the results I got compared to last year. I used my only wide zoom a Nikkor 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 AF-D on a D700 for the entire fireworks display which lasts for about 30 minutes. It is actually the second time that I try to shoot fireworks in some planned manner and after reading up on some material online I decided that my settings would be in the f9-f11 range and 200 to 500 iso. I tried to not exceed exposure times more than 3-4 secs hoping that I will have better defined results without a lot of batches of fireworks mixing in the same exposure window. Not sure if that makes sense but here are some of the results. C&C welcomed and appreciated.

1.


2.


3.


4.


5.


6.


7.


8.


9.
This is just plain old Manhattan skyline reflecting a nice golden sunset light


In a final comment, I generally like the 18-35mm but I am not a big fan of the distortion. I generally struggle to fix it in some pleasing way for me in pp. I use Lightroom 3 . Adobe at least in L3 does not seem to have a preset profile to fix this lens's distortion characteristics. If anybody knows of a relatively easy way of doing this in pp I'd love to hear it. Other post processing work I performed was general light adjustments and sharpening.

Thanks
Manos

Edited by makmanos, 07 July 2011 - 20:30 .

[armando_m]

Beautiful fireworks, well captured

Welcome to Nikongear

[ebswift]

Love the photos, welcome! Fireworks are something I have yet to get around to shooting. As for your question about distortion correction, can't the D700 be set to auto correct distortion 'on the fly'? Unfortunately I don't have that in my D90 so I must post process EVERYTHING if I want distortion-free photos. This is a huge annoyance on the D90, it nullifies any advantage of taking RAW+JPG in most cases.

[Dallas]

Welcome Manos! Those a re fine photos you posted. Thanks for sharing.

[DougB]

They are all great captures of the fireworks, reflection from the water & the skyline.

And WELCOME

[makmanos]

Thank you all for your kind remarks and for the welcome note !

Good point. Troy. (I hope I got your first name correct apologies if not, still learning my way around here)
Since I made the determination to shoot only in RAW i forgot completely about the in camera adjustments. You may be right and Nikon may compensate for lens characteristics. I will have to look it up.
Though that would still make me wonder why adobe hasn't come up with similar algos yet in LR3 for that lens. Not sure if Nikon's Capture NX supports it. I also have the 80-200mm for my long lens and , although considerably less important for me, I haven't seen a distortion profile preset in LR3 for that either.

[ebswift]

Yep, you got the name right Manos . After a bit more research it seems that Nikon's FX cameras don't support in-camera distortion control. Capture NX2 definitely does it though. Rather than creating a new adjustment, set auto distortion under Camera & Lens Corrections. I don't know anything about LR. You really only need 3rd party distortion control if you use 3rd party lenses. To straighten converging lines you can use this nifty little (free) tool: ShiftN.

I think the 80-200 is something I'd like to add to my wish list for sure. I'm mainly using an 18-200 but I'd sure like the speed and bokeh improvement of the 80-200 to complement it. I still think it's unlikely I'll give up the 18-200 anytime soon though; you don't miss a shot as long as you have the light.

[makmanos]

Thanks for the ShiftN tip Troy. I will check it out. Theoretically speaking, I should be able to determine the "right" adjustments for LR3 for that lens by printing out and using some sort of calibration templates I had found on Adobe's website at some point. I haven't gone through the trouble yet so far.

80-200 is a fine lens . I am very pleased with it. I use it for portraits as well as anything else really. Picture 9 in this set has been shot with it. On the other hand though, I do not have anything as versatile as your 18-200mm is! But I guess I should leave this talk for a separate thread or else I will be off subject already

Edited by makmanos, 06 July 2011 - 20:06 .

[AlfIDI]

Hi Manos, welcome to the forum!

I like your shots, only I wish you posted them bigger


These are truely wonderful fireworks- I think you nailed exposure pretty much- and finally show Manhattan in a situation where it does not dominate the landscape.


Alf

[Chris101]

I'm glad you found us Manos! Pictures 1 and 4 a re very effective at filling the frame!

[makmanos]

Thanks both for your greetings and comments

Alf, I was not sure what would be an effective size for the pics for this forum . I am linking my pics to my flickr stream and I had used originally the medium size image (640 pixels on the long edge) . I now have changed the first 3 pics to point to the large size of the images (1000 pixels on the long edge) just to get a comparative idea. Does it work better? It seems that they need to be expanded to their full size or they appear a bit softer.
Pretty much all of the frames of the fireworks that I shot, were at 18mm. I had decided that I was not going to make any changes during the event so that I capture as many frames as possible within the 30 minutes display. At that focal length from the area I was taking the pictures, Manhattan had no chances of dominating the frame

Chris, I was trying out different crop sizes and I liked the 1st version for the way it frames the empire state building between the fireworks and their reflections on the Hudson and on the 3rd I was trying to create a frame that would give the impression of sort of fire coming down from the sky on the skyline.

[AlfIDI]

Hi Manos,

1000 long edge works wonders

[DaveO]

I really like your pics, even the buildings in the background are well exposed.


DaveO

[makmanos]

Thanks Dave!

I "wasted" a good number of pics shooting the skyline before the start of the fireworks to decide on the approximate exposure time so that the city was lit in some satisfactory way.

One other thing I forgot to mention in the main post was the fact that I had lens flare which I only discovered in pp and even then it took me a while to realize it was in fact glare and not some city light reflection against passing clouds or smoke. I had to fix that as well.

Edited by makmanos, 07 July 2011 - 22:35 .

[Mike Buckley]

I'm having a REALLY difficult time picking a favorite from among so many wonderful images!

[makmanos]

Thanks a bunch Mike!

[fmrnykr]

Manos,

Great shots. Sort of makes me miss the city, but then I come to my senses and remember where I am.

Welcome and keep shooting.

Bob

[makmanos]

Thanks for the kind comments Bob. You seem not to be far from SF which is another great city so I am sure you compensate the NYC loss in many different satisfactory ways