Firework Photography - Bonfire Night in Penistone 2022
I've always found fireworks fascinating particularly when trying to capture them in a photograph as you never really know what you are going to get until the image has finished exposing and is displayed on the camera's screen.
I found a new viewpoint to photograph yesterday's display with the aim of capturing the fireworks and bonfire within a wider setting adding a little context and scale into the shots. I really enjoyed experimenting with focal lengths & shutter speed to try and capture the lights of my local town blended with the much brighter bonfire and fireworks.
I found an exposure time of 15 seconds at around f7.1 rendered enough of the fireworks without leaving a blurry mess. 15 seconds of exposure also meant that the shutter was often open before the firework exploded allowing me to capture the full shape of the firework including the initial central explosion. I took the approach of shooting wide enough to capture the whole town, setting focus manually and then continually firing the shutter allowing me to choose the frames with the best display of colour.
There were a number of planes in the sky leaving long light trails in the photographs. Penistone is at times under the flight path to Manchester airport and on this evening a number of large planes flew overhead. Within these images in the distance you can see the light trails of the cars traveling through the northern Peak District over the woodhead pass.
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