Ouray Colorado - Fireworks Timelapse

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JimFox

JimFox

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This if from the 4th of July in Ouray Colorado. I had met up with Alisa and we had decided to photograph the fireworks in the sweet little mountain town of Ouray. We had seen some photos, so we were pretty sure they had been taken along the Perimeter Trail, a trail that circles all around the town of Ouray. We set off to do some scouting and found a couple of locations that would allow us to see the fireworks, have the mountains in the background and have the night lights of Ouray then below us.

My photos turned out great! I had set up 2 cameras shooting still photos for timelapses and 2 cameras set up shooting video. I was quite the sight walking up the trail, it was a couple of hundred feet elevation gain, and I guess somewhat less then a mile on this hiking trail. I had 4 tripods, and of course all of the cameras and such. :)

This video/timelapse I am not so sure how much I like it. But I am posting it anyway since I did it. :rolleyes:

The beginning video is from my iphone 11 Pro I had set up on one tripod. The firework sounds you hear in the timelapse are all from that video. The cut to the timelapse section to me seems too jarring. Maybe others won't mind. I wish this whole thing was video in hindsight. Maybe if I removed the firework soundtrack the timelapse fireworks wouldn't seem out of place.

But here is my issue. I did 2 video's, one with the iPhone 11 Pro, and one with the Sony A6400. The iPhone 11 Pro looks the best because the fireworks look great in it. But the mountains are lost in the background. For me, the whole point of capturing the fireworks from Ouray was to get the fireworks in the foreground being contrasted with the cool mountains in the background. There is just too limited dynamic range it seems with video for that to happen. On the Sony A6400, the whole video is sharper and more detailed then from the iPhone, but the fireworks are blown out in most of the video, and the mountains can't be seen any better really. Any type of processing to either video caused horrible noise in the video, it falls apart fast.

Perhaps had there been a clear sky, the edge of the mountains at least would have been more visible in the videos?

Or maybe had I shot faster on my photographs and raised the ISO I could have made a smoother timelapse?

The settings for the timelapse part are 3 seconds, ISO 800 and f5.6. Partway through the video I lowered the ISO to 200 as the fireworks seemed to be blowing out when I zoomed in on playback. But with the Nikons I use being ISO invariant, it didn't really matter what the ISO was.

Okay, a lot of jabbering, but I wanted to share my thought process on this one.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

 
Ben Egbert

Ben Egbert

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This looks pretty coll anyway but I have to ask why you did not use one of your Nikon cameras?
 
AlanLichty

AlanLichty

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Scratching my head on this one. I am not entirely sold on what timelapse does for continuity of the fireworks show. It felt like a sped up slide show with 3 second exposures. The big kids fireworks shows like this one are choreographed with a rapid pace that didn't seem to match the metronome of your timelapse frames. Not quite sure how you are supposed to sync the timing the show is running on to your timelapse capture timing - just an observation after watching the video. I never would have thought about that until seeing this.
 
JimFox

JimFox

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Ben Egbert said:
This looks pretty coll anyway but I have to ask why you did not use one of your Nikon cameras?
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Hey Ben,

The answer to your question may make you laugh.... :)

I had this really grand idea of capturing the Fireworks as the Milky Way rose in the background. So I had 2 of my Nikons set up with that in mind. One at 14mm for the potential MW, and the other tighter so when I blended I would have more detail. The clouds never cleared and I think I was not really at the right angle anyway for the MW.

My problem besides the clouds, is that are is like Bortle 2, it's insanely dark. Now there is some light pollution from the town, but it's pretty tame as it's a small town. So I think with it being so dark, it just made the fireworks that much brighter in comparison.

Next time though, I think I will use one of my main Nikons for a video of the fireworks, and see how that turns out.
 
JimFox

JimFox

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AlanLichty said:
Scratching my head on this one. I am not entirely sold on what timelapse does for continuity of the fireworks show. It felt like a sped up slide show with 3 second exposures. The big kids fireworks shows like this one are choreographed with a rapid pace that didn't seem to match the metronome of your timelapse frames. Not quite sure how you are supposed to sync the timing the show is running on to your timelapse capture timing - just an observation after watching the video. I never would have thought about that until seeing this.
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Yep, I totally get you Alan. I am not sold on this, I have the same feelings as to why. It was a good little exercise, and I will get the total video out hopefully in a few days. Even if the mountains don't show up well, the fireworks were really awesome and well done.
 
Jameel Hyder

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Similar thoughts as what Alan expressed. A video of the event would be much more appropriate than a timelapse.
 
JimFox

JimFox

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Jameel Hyder said:
Similar thoughts as what Alan expressed. A video of the event would be much more appropriate than a timelapse.
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Totally get it Jameel, as I explained, I had the same thoughts when I viewed my finished video. I was curious if it was just me.

I will put the video together later. It's always hard though when you have a certain vision of an event, and then the video doesn't capture it fully. But that's on me I guess to let go of the idea of seeing the mountains clearly in the background.
 
T

TimMc

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I understand the desire for a Timelapse. The ability to produce a three minute recap of a 30 minute show, for social media advertising , is a great option for the show sponsors. Jim, from the little I have discovered, it appears you have your normal exposure choices and a duration between exposures. Typically I would be shooting stills at 20 seconds, f11 and iso 64. Can you shoot that on Timelapse every 20 seconds or do you need a gap for recording? What kind of interval did you shoot yours ?

Is there a way to speed up a 30 minute video to a 3 minute recap in post processing as an alternate ? If it isn't obvious I don't wonder very far from shooting stills 👻
 
JimFox

JimFox

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TimMc said:
I understand the desire for a Timelapse. The ability to produce a three minute recap of a 30 minute show, for social media advertising , is a great option for the show sponsors. Jim, from the little I have discovered, it appears you have your normal exposure choices and a duration between exposures. Typically I would be shooting stills at 20 seconds, f11 and iso 64. Can you shoot that on Timelapse every 20 seconds or do you need a gap for recording? What kind of interval did you shoot yours ?

Is there a way to speed up a 30 minute video to a 3 minute recap in post processing as an alternate ? If it isn't obvious I don't wonder very far from shooting stills 👻
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Thanks Tim!

There is no gaps with shooting a timelapse of fireworks, if you did you would end up missing half of the fireworks. No, shooting fireworks is just like shooting lightning, you set it to your desired exposure, lock in the remote release and let it run. It gets sped up because you are taking longer (several second exposures, that's what compresses the time.

So for this I shot:

3 sec exposures
ISO 800
f5.6
Remote Release locked in, so there is no gaps.

And yep, you certainly can speed up a 30 minute video.

My main issue is the Video Quality is not as good as the still photo quality. There is very very very little shadow/highlight recovery that can be done on a video compared to 5 stops of shadow and 1 stop of highlights that you can do to a Raw still image.

Now you guys will probably think that the video looks great, because none of you had the same expectations I had built in. If you read my comments to Ben, I ultimately wanted the Milky Way in the background with the fireworks in the foreground. Which could be done in Ouray. I just got clouded out, so the MW was not to be seen. (I might be a little too ambitious.... :) )

I appreciate your thoughts and ideas. I have a whole year to work on a new plan of attack for this one. :)
 
T

TimMc

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JimFox said:
Thanks Tim!



I appreciate your thoughts and ideas. I have a whole year to work on a new plan of attack for this one. :)
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you have a advantage. I have a fireworks show coming up in 2 weeks.

are you shooting a large number of stills and combining to a time lapse instead of using the time lapse function?

thanks
 
JimFox

JimFox

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TimMc said:
you have a advantage. I have a fireworks show coming up in 2 weeks.

are you shooting a large number of stills and combining to a time lapse instead of using the time lapse function?

thanks
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Actually I am jealous you have fireworks in 2 weeks! I wish I didn't have to wait a year.

I do the vast majority of my timelapses as continuous captures and then I process them in ACR as a batch, and then I combine and make them into a timelapse in Photoshop.

You certainly could use the in camera timelapse option, but it will put a 1 second gap in between the shots. You can't make the interval to be less then 1 sec. So you could be missing vital parts of a fireworks explosion with that. With the Remote Release there is a very minimal gap as it's just locked in.

I pretty much only use the in camera timelapse option when I am shooting timelapses of clouds and I want anywhere from a 3 sec to a 20 second gap between each image taken. But that's the only time, all of my other timelapses are shot continuously with the Remote Release locked in.

You have 2 cameras, you should set one up in Video mode and one set up shooting stills.. Just make sure the one shooting video is far enough away that it won't hear the shutter of the one shooting stills. (unless you have it in a quiet mode).
 
AlanLichty

AlanLichty

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Ben gets another fireworks show in the coming weeks as well. Utah celebrates the Fourth of July but its a secondary event compared to the Days of '47 celebrated on July 24th. The Days of '47 events typically include rodeos, parades, and of course fireworks shows. The fireworks are far more extensive than what is usually done for July 4.
 
JimFox

JimFox

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AlanLichty said:
Ben gets another fireworks show in the coming weeks as well. Utah celebrates the Fourth of July but its a secondary event compared to the Days of '47 celebrated on July 24th. The Days of '47 events typically include rodeos, parades, and of course fireworks shows. The fireworks are far more extensive than what is usually done for July 4.
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That sounds like fun. I wish I could be there.
 
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