A lot of firework displays were canceled as Amy mentioned in her thread. I found a listing of 40 of them still being put on in Colorado. As I scrolled through the list the one thing I had in my mind was with the Prenumbral Lunar Eclipse happening after sunset, I thought perhaps I could shoot the eclipse of the moon at the same time with some fireworks going off.
Now with some of the local fireworks, I probably could have pulled that off easy enough, but in that Fireworks Listing, I found one where they were going to shoot the fireworks from off of a cliff top. Now that sounded so cool, I mean really cool. I saw some photos from previous 4th of Julys on their website and was hooked. It was a 3 hour drive from my daughters, but that was no problem as I had a goal for some really cool fireworks, and hopefully also be able to set up at an angle where I could get the moon too in the same shot.
When I got to Kremmling Colorado where the Light the Cliff display was happening, I found pretty quickly the same angle as in the photos I had scene. But while I was looking at the cliff I saw it seemed to end not too far to the left of where the fireworks would be shot, and I thought that if I could actually find a different angle and shoot the cliff from more from the side, I could get some cool depth to the image instead of just shooting them straight on to the cliffs. A little bit of exploring later, I found the perfect spot! What's amazing was no one else ever came to where I was shooting at. Most people it seemed watched it from the Elementary school parking lot, and another parking lot by their Mercantile store.
Well, the first thing I checked when setting up was where the moon would rise from, and sadly it would not rise anywhere close to the cliff where the fireworks would be shot from, in fact it was almost 180 degrees the opposite direction. I accepted that I wouldn't be able to get the fireworks and the full moon in the same shot, and set up a couple of cameras towards the cliff, and my D850 with the Tamron 150-600mm facing the opposite direction towards where the moon should rise over a hill.
As it got darker, I noticed a lot of people where just shooting off their own fireworks and occasionally a few of them went up a bit into the sky. They were scattered in all directions in this little town of Kremmling, and I began to hope that maybe I could get some fireworks after all with the moon. Not the professional display, but these fireworks still looked pretty nice. After the moon cleared the hillside, I got my camera focused on it, and I set the lens wider then normal, and also shot at f13 to give me a little more DOF knowing that it would be hard to get the fireworks and the moon both in focus at the longer focal length.
After about a dozen shots, some fireworks went off in the direction of the moon!!! I had the camera locked in with the remote release taking 4 second shots I think, I opened up the release, and sure enough I had gotten a fireworks display in the shot with the moon!!!! I immediately then adjusted my exposure to get a nice exposure of the moon since the exposure timing I needed for the fireworks would then blow out the moon. I quickly switched to a faster shutter speed, captured the moon with it not being blown out and I would good to go.
So this is a 2 shot blend. The 1st shot for the ground and fireworks. The 2nd shot I underexposed for the moon. In Photoshop I just made a Layer Mask over the blown out moon and slid the properly exposed moon underneath the blown out moon and I was done.
All comments are welcome,
Jim
Now with some of the local fireworks, I probably could have pulled that off easy enough, but in that Fireworks Listing, I found one where they were going to shoot the fireworks from off of a cliff top. Now that sounded so cool, I mean really cool. I saw some photos from previous 4th of Julys on their website and was hooked. It was a 3 hour drive from my daughters, but that was no problem as I had a goal for some really cool fireworks, and hopefully also be able to set up at an angle where I could get the moon too in the same shot.
When I got to Kremmling Colorado where the Light the Cliff display was happening, I found pretty quickly the same angle as in the photos I had scene. But while I was looking at the cliff I saw it seemed to end not too far to the left of where the fireworks would be shot, and I thought that if I could actually find a different angle and shoot the cliff from more from the side, I could get some cool depth to the image instead of just shooting them straight on to the cliffs. A little bit of exploring later, I found the perfect spot! What's amazing was no one else ever came to where I was shooting at. Most people it seemed watched it from the Elementary school parking lot, and another parking lot by their Mercantile store.
Well, the first thing I checked when setting up was where the moon would rise from, and sadly it would not rise anywhere close to the cliff where the fireworks would be shot from, in fact it was almost 180 degrees the opposite direction. I accepted that I wouldn't be able to get the fireworks and the full moon in the same shot, and set up a couple of cameras towards the cliff, and my D850 with the Tamron 150-600mm facing the opposite direction towards where the moon should rise over a hill.
As it got darker, I noticed a lot of people where just shooting off their own fireworks and occasionally a few of them went up a bit into the sky. They were scattered in all directions in this little town of Kremmling, and I began to hope that maybe I could get some fireworks after all with the moon. Not the professional display, but these fireworks still looked pretty nice. After the moon cleared the hillside, I got my camera focused on it, and I set the lens wider then normal, and also shot at f13 to give me a little more DOF knowing that it would be hard to get the fireworks and the moon both in focus at the longer focal length.
After about a dozen shots, some fireworks went off in the direction of the moon!!! I had the camera locked in with the remote release taking 4 second shots I think, I opened up the release, and sure enough I had gotten a fireworks display in the shot with the moon!!!! I immediately then adjusted my exposure to get a nice exposure of the moon since the exposure timing I needed for the fireworks would then blow out the moon. I quickly switched to a faster shutter speed, captured the moon with it not being blown out and I would good to go.
So this is a 2 shot blend. The 1st shot for the ground and fireworks. The 2nd shot I underexposed for the moon. In Photoshop I just made a Layer Mask over the blown out moon and slid the properly exposed moon underneath the blown out moon and I was done.
All comments are welcome,
Jim