Bai Chuang Shyu  


Fireworks in Dadaocheng by Bai Chuang Shyu

September 2019 - Fireworks in Dadaocheng

About the Image(s)

We have an annual celebration of the Chinese Valentine day in the river bank of Dadaocheng harbor in the summer. This year a 480-second fireworks show was displayed in the evening of the August 3. I went to the park opposite to the Dadaocheng and tried to find some trees to frame the foreground. My Nikon D810 was in tripod and a series of fireworks were taken with f/10, 4 seconds and ISO of 64. The fireworks were selected and overlaid on the nigh scene of the Dadaocheng harbor. The post processing was done in Viveza2 and cropped in PhotoShop.


This round’s discussion is now closed!
8 comments posted




 
Love the colors and sharpness of the fireworks. Looks like you found just the right setting too. But the blurriness of the setting detracts from the photo. Suggest you go back some evening and retake the setting. Then, with a sharp image you could re-create the fireworks scene, including, if you can, the very top of the central explosion.   Posted: 09/07/2019 10:53:00
Bai Chuang Shyu   Bai Chuang Shyu
Don, Thank you for your suggestion! It was windy the night when I was taking the shot. Thus to freeze the moving leaves in the darkness, I need to use the high ISO value and fast speed. It was the high ISO value creates more noise, reducing the image quality. The setting could be retaken if there is no wind and I can use low ISO and slow speed to take the stationary nigh scene.   Posted: 09/08/2019 23:25:52
 
I use PhotoShop 18 and shoot in RAW. In RAW, I use the "luminance" control (move it to 100) and it removes all noise! So I always use whatever high ISO I need knowing noise will not be a problem.   Posted: 09/09/2019 11:55:50
Bai Chuang Shyu   Bai Chuang Shyu
Thanks Don! I did try one of the RAW image. It makes a great improvement!   Posted: 09/10/2019 07:21:57



Cindy Lynch   Cindy Lynch
Good advice, Don. Bai, I especially like the time of night which you shot this photo. I like the deep blue tone in the sky, rather than the black sky you would have at a later time. The composition and design of the fireworks are great. I would have liked to have seen the buildings sharper and I would suggest cropping the light green leaf in the far right cropped off.   Posted: 09/09/2019 22:10:20



Charlie Yang   Charlie Yang
very pretty and neat image, except the right edge leaf mentioned before. I'd try darken it first, and vignetting the edges, see if that do the trick first.   Posted: 09/10/2019 00:26:30



I think the overall composition is good. I like the tree branches framing on the left side. As discussed, I think the composition needs space above the top of the fireworks and removing the grass to the right. To my eye, you have captured the fireworks well for exposure and focus.
You have written the ISO is 64 but that seems low; was it 6400?
What lens were you using and its f-stop?
Did you use manual focus? Normally for this type of photography I think one focuses the lens at infinity which should have put the buildings in focus too. I think in this example getting the buildings in focus using auto-focus and then switching the camera to manual focus would work. Hope that makes sense.
Sorry for all the questions. Best!   Posted: 09/15/2019 18:44:32
Bai Chuang Shyu   Bai Chuang Shyu
John, Thanks for your questions. I was taken the background scene first using the ISO 64 before the fireworks. The wide angle Nikon lens was used (AF-S 14-24 mm, f/16, manual infinity focus). I wish to reduce the noise in this dark scene. But It took about 30 seconds. Perhaps the long exposure time and the windy condition that make the building s were not very sharp. The leaves and trees were all blurred out in this long exposure image. I then took a short exposure time, 1/60, with high ISO 6400 which may freeze the leaves but make a lot of noise. These two images were overlaid. It is a good lesson to learn the de-noise technique.   Posted: 09/15/2019 23:08:14