I set up on the shoreline with the lighthouse directly in front of me.
Once again, I had the D90 and 24-120 lense on my tripod. Getting to my shooting
location before dark, allowed me to manually focus on the lighthouse to make
sure that was in focus. In manual mode, I switched to bulb which allowed me to
hold the shutter down between 5 – 20 seconds for these images. An aperture of
f9 – f14 was also used. Standard settings of RAW and ISO 200 were used along
with the Hahnel remote.
The RAW files were processed in ViewNX first with minor adjustments.
The exposure compensation was increased to help brighten the fireworks and sky.
On the majority of the images, white balance setting was not touched but on a
few, I did change it to direct sunlight. The fireworks picture control was used
as well to help brighten the images.
To finalize the images, I used PSE11 to blend a better exposed
lighthouse into the firework burst image. By using a combination of blending
modes, layer masks and the brush tool, I was able to smoothly blend the
lighthouse. My final step involved sharpening the firework burst area with the
sharpen tool.
Before the fireworks started, I happened to notice a new flag pole that
had the stars and stripes blowing in the light wind. Seeing a great opportunity
to get the flag pole and light house in with the fireworks in one image, I
moved my camera to this location and took a couple test shots. Unfortunately,
the wind died so I decided to go back to my original location. However, I look
forward to going back and getting a great firework photograph with those items
in the background. Luckily, with PSE11 I
was able to see what the photograph would potential look like and I can’t wait
to try to capture the image in one click of the shutter.
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#9. HDR image created in EasyHDR.
#10. Blended the firework burst into this background/foreground image.
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