Playing with Light

The Fourth of July is an excellent time to practice those creative exposures. We drove up to a field near where they were having the fireworks display on Friday evening, set up the tripod, and took the following photos. For the fireworks, I used my remote to trigger the shutter, used my 50mm prime lens (sharper of my two lenses), set the ISO to 200, set the aperture to around f/11.0, and set the shutter speed to between 2 seconds and 4 seconds (varied it as I reviewed the photos). The key to these is the tripod and the remote (hands-free means vibration free which means blur free).

After the fireworks, we set up the tripod in the backyard and practiced "writing with light". This involves a tripod, a remote shutter release, and light producing medium. We chose the sparklers we had leftover from the last Fourth of July (red, green, and blue). With the same settings as above (50mm prime lens, ISO to 200, aperture to f/11.0), I then set the shutter speed to Bulb so I could control the exposure and thus the light artwork. You open the shutter right before the artist begins "drawing" and then release (close) the shutter as soon as they finish. We experimented writing fast versus slow to get more "sparks" and brighter areas in the final picture. Enjoy some of artwork!