Shooting Fireworks - My First Time

Location: City of Naga, Cebu

Date taken: October 5, 2013

• Settings: 2 secƒ/11ISO 10050 mm

Today, City of Naga in Cebu celebrated its 6th Charter Day as the current mayor of the city is also celebrating his birthday. A while ago, there was a 5-minute fireworks display (actually I didn't know it was only 5 minutes until it ended). I had no idea how to shoot fireworks so I decided to search through Google what are the settings to be used for the said shot.

Settings: 2 secƒ/11ISO 10050 mm

I tried using the 50 mm prime lens and very anxious about it since I had no freedom to use a wide angle lens. So it was challenging for me and my tripod is not sturdy enough. As I was fixing my camera, there went the explosion. I was not really that ready at all. Forgive me for being a noob.

Settings: 2 secƒ/11ISO 10050 mm

I tried using the aperture f/2.8 but it was overexposed so I was using f/11 all the time. As what I've said earlier, I never thought that the fireworks display was just too short. I would love to play a smaller f-stop at least f/5.6 but I did not get the chance.

Settings: 2 secƒ/11ISO 10050 mm

All in all, I only got 23 shots and all of them are not that impressive but still I'm happy that I have experienced to shoot some fireworks. May be, if only the fireworks lasted for 20 to 30 minutes, I would have the chance to improve some of my shots.

Settings: 2 secƒ/11ISO 10050 mm

Some of the pictures here were cropped from the original size to frame the fireworks.

Settings: 2 secƒ/11ISO 10050 mm

Settings: 2 secƒ/11ISO 10050 mm

I'm using Adobe Lightroom for some retouching. I got the process from this site but this is the process I use:

• +17% for the Contrast
• - 100% for Blacks
• +5% for Saturation

Settings: 2 secƒ/11ISO 10050 mm

Settings: 2 secƒ/11ISO 10050 mm

Settings: 2 secƒ/11ISO 10050 mm

Settings: 2 secƒ/11ISO 10050 mm

Take a look on my portfolio and check out the rest of my photos on my Flickr account.

Photo Restoration Project 2 - Face Replacement

So I have a fond memory with this image.  This is the project I had in high school with our computer subject. Since Smallville was a big hit and I am a fan of Tom Welling, I decided to browsed any images with Clark and Lana. Haha! So I found this one.

I didn't have a nice picture of myself that fits the face of Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) so I only got 95% for the project but not bad enough because of the humor that was playing on my mind.  Actually, the picture above was not the original image I submitted to my teacher but a revised one.  My face that was replaced on Lana Lang's was a picture when I was a college student.

The original image I submitted to my teacher was created through Adobe Photoshop but the revised image was created through the combination of GIMP and Fireworks.  I have trouble using with the two image enhancing soft wares because I am not used to it until now.  I prefer Adobe Photoshop.

Check out the fan page: Fotografi Rox