Exploring Digital Photography.pdf

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From pixels to print: Your guide to better digital image capturing and editing

In This Issue

Freeze Frame:

Capture the rocket’s

red glare with your

digital camera

Get up close and

personal with your

digital photographs

Make quick color

changes using

brushes in Photoshop

Exposure bracketing

helps get the right

shot every time

Freeze Frame

Get the most from

your digital camera’s

movie mode

Capture the rocket’s red glare

with your digital camera

by Stephen Dow

The Contact Sheet:

Digital versus ﬁlm:

The great debate

D igital cameras aren’t known for their low-light exposure ability. In fact,

they can be quite troublesome when trying to take nighttime shots, let

alone shots of a ﬁreworks show. The mixture of a dark sky and bright

streaks of color can wreak havoc on your camera’s image sensor. Tradi-

tional photographers have devised some reliable techniques for shooting fire-

works, but these practices only partially apply in the digital world. To get great

shots of your next ﬁreworks show, there are some special steps you can take to

make sure your ﬁreworks images get the oohs and aahs you deserve.

Get on with the show

In this article, we’ll tell you how to get some

great shots from your digital camera at your next

fireworks show. First, we’ll discuss the chal-

lenges involved when a digital camera comes

across such brief ﬂashes of light against a dark

background. Next, we’ll walk you through the

complete process of shooting the ﬁreworks show,

from setup and location selection to exposure

settings and framing. Finally, we’ll look at what

you can do in your image-editing application to

give your fireworks images some more punch.

Setting the scene

The process of capturing a spectacular ﬁreworks

display begins well before the show starts. One

of the most important steps in this process is

selecting your shooting location. Fireworks

shots look best when they fill the frame but

don’t extend beyond it. While you could always

crop out extra image space in post-processing,

attempt to use as much of your image sensor as

possible to get the best resolution and detail. To

do this, try to get as close to the action as possi-

ble without putting yourself in harm’s way.

Anticipate where the ﬁreworks will explode, but

know that you’ll probably have to make adjust-

ments once the show starts. Position yourself

upwind from where the fireworks are being

launched and detonated, as shooting through a

thick wall of smoke will do nothing good for

your image.

A steady footing

For the best results, place your camera on a tri-

pod or other firm foundation. We can’t stress

this enough—your shutter is going to be open

longer than usual to capture enough light for the

exposure. This long shutter time also exposes

any camera movement, turning your bursts of

light into squiggles! If your digital camera came

with a remote control, consider using it to elimi-

nate any camera shake that can occur when you

press the shutter button.

Adding more than the sky

While shooting ﬁreworks against the dark night

sky is dramatic enough, you may want to con-

sider adding other objects

into your scene, as shown in

Figure A . If you’re shooting

a show in a downtown area,

consider adding a landmark

to help set the scene and

encourage some interesting

reﬂective possibilities. Water

creates beautiful reflections

of the show and can create

some captivating mirror

images. Also, keep in mind

that the audience may be as

interesting as the show. Sil-

houette the crowd against

the explosions, or turn your

camera around and capture

the glow of a burst on their

faces. We’ve even seen some

stunning overhead shots of

fireworks shows from air-

Figuring out ﬁreworks

Fireworks are unpredictable, short-lived, volatile,

erratic, etc. Capturing a good photograph of a

firework burst takes as much luck as it does

planning. However, understanding the chal-

lenges when shooting a fireworks show is the

key to getting quality images.

The biggest problem when shooting at night

with a digital camera is the buildup of noise

when the sensor is exposed to light for a long

period of time. This isn’t a problem with film

cameras, where the traditional method is to

open the shutter, cover the lens with something

dark, and wait for the ﬁreworks burst to remove

the dark object and expose the film. But this

process doesn’t work so well with a digital cam-

era, as the image sensor can produce noise even

if no light is reaching it. So, getting good shots at

a fireworks show is largely a matter of using

your camera’s settings to properly expose the

image without developing any nasty noise.

Figure A: By taking the time to set the scene, you can create some memorable shots.

Exploring Digital Photography

Quick Clicks

Lost your lens cap?

Lens caps have a nasty habit of walking away from you. But before you rush to the manufac-

turer’s Web site and buy a pricey piece of plastic, ﬁrst check your camera’s manual to see if

your lens cap has a standard conﬁguration such as 24, 37 or 43 mm. Since these are standard

lens cap sizes, a cheap replacement might be waiting for you at your local camera shop.

planes. While we don’t think you have to go to

this extreme, selecting your shooting position

thoughtfully can yield some effective shots.

Getting your camera ready

First things ﬁrst—you’re going to need memory,

and lots of it. Since your ﬁreworks images will

probably contain as many misses as hits, shoot

as many images as possible. Use the largest

memory card you have and shoot until you’re

out of memory. Also, make sure you have a fully

charged battery in the camera—nothing is worse

than running out of juice before the ﬁnale!

Next, we’re going to go over some other set-

tings to be aware of when shooting fireworks.

While every digital camera is different, use these

guidelines to make smart choices for what’s the

best combination of settings to get the most from

your camera.

Figure B: Noise can

build up fast at night, so

be aware of your exposure

settings to keep noise at a

minimum.

when it comes to focal distance. The best selec-

tion is to set the focusing scale to infinity, but

many digital cameras don’t offer this option. Try

to avoid using the autofocus option, as your shot

will be gone by the time your camera focuses on

the burst. If you can set your camera for a spe-

ciﬁc focal range, estimate your distance from the

ﬁreworks and hope for the best!

Selecting your image size

When shooting fireworks, shoot at the highest

resolution possible. If your camera has an

uncompressed RAW format option, go with that.

Otherwise, select the image setting that will

compress your image the least. Compression can

skew colors and reduce saturation as well as add

unwanted noise to your image, particularly in

nighttime skies. Using the image sensor to its

fullest potential also allows you extra image size

in case you need to crop your image later.

Getting the right exposure

If your camera offers manual exposure controls,

you’re going to want to use them to your advan-

tage. Smaller apertures, such as f/5.6, f/8 and

f/11, work best with ﬁreworks as they produce

thin streaks of color rather than the thicker

bands produced when a larger aperture lets too

much light in.

As for the shutter speed, you need to open

the shutter long enough to get sufficient light

without allowing noise to develop on the sensor.

Some digital cameras offer a Bulb mode (B),

which allows the shutter to remain open as long

as the shutter button is pressed. This option is

best for traditional film setups, but use it with

caution in a digital camera. Noise can build up

quickly, decreasing the quality of your image, as

ahown in Figure B . Use a shutter speed range

from 1 ⁄ 4 to 2 seconds. Longer shutter speeds are

desirable, so experiment with your camera to

ﬁnd out what your limitations are.

Note: The trade-off of using a less compressed

image format (such as RAW or TIFF) is the

time it takes to write the ﬁle to your storage

media. If you ﬁnd your shots taking too long

to save, go a step down to speed things up.

Focus on what?

It’s basically impossible to predict the focal range

of a ﬁreworks burst. For that reason, it’s best to

give your camera the maximum range of latitude

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July 2002

Note: When photographing fireworks, turn

off your ﬂash. If you set up your camera cor-

rectly, the ﬁreworks will give off all the light

you need.

Color concerns

The vivid colors of a fireworks show are what

it’s all about. For that reason, you want to set

your camera up to take the best color possible.

Ironically, good nighttime color comes from an

unlikely source. By setting your camera’s white

balance setting to “Daylight” (or a similar set-

ting such as “Sunny”), you give the camera the

best chance to get an accurate range of colors.

Other settings, even a “Night” setting, overem-

phasize portions of the spectrum that increase

noise visibility. By exposing with a Daylight set-

ting, you can capture the vibrant explosions

without getting unwanted color details.

Keeping the noise down

The ISO setting on your digital camera deter-

mines how sensitive your image sensor is to

light. While you might think that setting a higher

ISO for a nighttime shot would give a better

exposure in low-light conditions, it isn’t a good

idea to shoot above ISO 200 during a ﬁreworks

show. Again, we shoot at this setting because of

noise, as higher ISO settings tend to create nois-

ier images. ISO 100 or 200 does a good job while

reducing the possibility of noise buildup.

What do heat and humidity have to do with

image quality? Well, digital cameras are more

susceptible to noise buildup in hot and wet con-

ditions, which is likely at an Independence Day

celebration. This is the infamous “hot pixel”

issue, where pixels on the image sensor overheat

and give false readings. Higher ISO settings are

prone to display this noise, especially when

you’re shooting a larger area of dark color such

as the bluish-black night sky.

What can you do about the heat and humidity?

Unfortunately, there’s no magic technique to over-

come the elements. If you ﬁnd a lot of dark noise in

your images, set the ISO to the lowest possible set-

ting and slightly reduce your exposure compensa-

tion to “desensitize” the image sensor and minimize

the appearance of noise in your image.

Note: If your digital camera has in-camera

sharpening, it’s a good idea to turn this option

off and do your sharpening in your image-ed-

iting application. The ﬁne details of an explo-

sion can be lost with in-camera sharpening.

On with the show!

Once your camera is set up, shooting ﬁreworks

is largely a matter of reacting to the show. It’s a

good idea to start the show with your lens

zoomed out—zoom in on the action once you

have a good idea of the range of the explosions.

Shoot as many images as possible—you can pick

the winners later. Consider using your camera’s

continuous or burst mode, if available. This

option takes a series of shots in quick succession,

allowing you to shoot the burst from initial

explosion to fade away. If you’re shooting in a

normal, single-shot mode, keep your camera’s

lag time in mind and adjust your reaction time

accordingly. Since the explosions can be unpre-

dictable, the best technique is to shoot ﬁrst and

ask questions later.

Figure C: We took this shot into an image-editing program and boosted

the saturation levels to create a much more attractive image.

What to do after the show

What can you do to improve your fireworks

images? Consider boosting saturation levels to

make the streaks of light more vibrant, as we did

in Figure C . You’ll also want to eliminate as

much noise in your image as possible, a topic

explored in detail in “Remove unwanted noise

from your digital images” in the June 2002 issue.

Yo u may also ﬁnd that some of your bursts

have hotspots from the explosion—try using

your image-editing application’s Levels adjust-

ment to decrease the intensity of the highlights

and increase the midtones. Your image will be

heavy in the shadows, but you’ll want a nice

dark sky as the background to isolate your

explosions.

Exploring Digital Photography

The post-processing stage is also the best

time to add any sharpening to your images, as

you have the maximum level of control. Since

we aren’t using a speciﬁc focal point, you might

need to sharpen all images to some level. The

trick is to keep your sharpening to a minimum

so the ﬁne details of the ﬁrework streaks don’t

become pixilated.

Grand ﬁnale

Shooting ﬁreworks with a traditional ﬁlm setup is

hard, but shooting with a digital camera can be

even more challenging. However, the results are

worth the extra effort when you take the time to

set up your shot and your camera to expose the

perfect fireworks burst. Shoot often, be flexible

and enjoy the show!

Get up close and personal

with your digital photographs

by G.H. Cloutier

offer Close Up or Macro modes that

allow you to take detailed images of

small objects. The world of small things

offers great creative potential for looking at

things in a completely new way. The world of

small details can translate into something inter-

esting and fresh when seen at a larger size like

our water droplet in Figure A . In many cases,

you’ll ﬁnd that close-up images are more strik-

ing than vast landscapes. Close-up photography

also has many practical applications for docu-

mentation, research and archiving purposes.

Figure A:

Shooting small

things can be

as interesting

as shooting a

grand vista.

At close range

Whether you need to create images for a speciﬁc

purpose or if you’re just looking for a new

avenue to explore, these steps will help you on

your way. First, we’ll give you an overview of

some of the principles behind close-up photogra-

phy, followed by basic shooting tips and other

considerations you’ll need to keep in mind to get

optimum results. And, should you ever need to

display an image at a speciﬁc magniﬁcation, we’ll

show you how to use Adobe Photoshop to deter-

mine the magniﬁcation of an image for print.

tomacrography is 1:1 to 80:1 (eighty times life

size). While many cameras refer to their close-up

mode as a macro mode, the cameras aren’t actu-

ally capable of shooting 1:1 or greater. That abil-

ity really depends on the lens on your camera.

Is it close-up or macro?

Many people refer to close-up photography and

photomacrography as the same thing, but they

are actually different in terms of range. Close-up

photography covers the realm of imaging from

1:10 (1/10 th

Determining your camera’s capabilities

Many digital cameras come with macro zoom

lenses. By reworking the lens positioning, a cam-

era is capable of both telephoto and close-up

photography. While this doesn’t give you opti-

mal close-up quality, it’s good enough for most

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July 2002

Application: Adobe Photoshop 5.5/6.x

Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows, Macintosh

T hese days, quite a few digital cameras

of life size) to 1:1 (life size). Pho-

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