Night Flight Operations on an Aircraft Carrier

  Ok, first underway on my new assignment on the USS RONALD REAGAN (CVN 76) - a nuclear powered aircraft carrier for those who don't speak Navy - so I figured I had to take Excalibur out and get the obligatory shots of flight operations. The weather was pretty horrible the whole time we were out, and I found that as cool as flight ops were, grey F-18s taking off from a grey deck into a grey sky was simply not visually appealing enough fto make carrying the D4 / 70-200mm combo up ten decks worthwhile, so you will have to wait for high speed shots of fighters taking off and flying into the wild blue yonder. Night Flight Ops, on the other hand, were pretty freaking awesome, and with what little moon there was trapped behind the clouds, I figured they would be a challenge even for excalibur. And I was right. Still stuff on the decks with the amber deck lighting on- piece of cake.

Right before takeoff the plane lights up to signal the pilot is ready to go. Who knew the Navy was just as much into EL-Wire as burners are? The one thing I didn't count on that made some of the still shots difficult was jet wash. I wasn't allowed on the flight deck itself, I was shooting from Vulture's Row (area on the 09 level of the island, so named because everyone stands up there to watch flight ops, like a row of vultures on an old west cactus or tree limb) so I had limited movement. Landings and takeoffs from the waist catapults I was beam on and had a good angle.

But anything launching off the bow cats I was pretty much shooting from behind. Which I thought would give me some great shots of the afterburners. But what I didn't count on was the afterburners. with the Jet Blast deflectors aiming all that wash straight up, it was like trying to shoot through the heat waves you see on a desert highway. Believe it or not, this shot was in sharp focus locked in before the F-18 fired the afterburners up. The haze is all jet wash.

The second thing I didn't count on was that for landings, they turn the flight deck lights almost totally off, so the pilot just sees the landing lights (which are directional) and lineup lights. The 2.8 wasn't fast enough for landings. I had to swap out the 70-200 for my 50/1.8 and bring the shutter down to 1/50 sec to get workable images. That meant that I wasn't freezing the plane's movements with shutter speed, which gave me my first real chance to try panning. Didn't really nail it, but I did get a couple of decent shots of some night traps.

So, lessons learned on this first endeavor...

1- Wash from Afterburners is hard to shoot through.
2- It gets really, really, really dark out to sea at night.
3- Panning works, I just need to practice it a bit more
4- Aircraft Carriers are pretty darn cool.
5- It's hard not to use Navy lingo when talking about ships. I tried to explain things, if something didn't sound like english, drop me a comment and I will translate.

Hopefully next time we go out the skies will be blue and I can get some day shots, or maybe it'll be a clear full moon, I think then I could get the 70-200 back on there and really get some good stuff.

Gear Review: Kata Access 18 PL camera bag.

  This review will complete the triumvirate of bags I use. Like I mentioned in my first bag review, the two Think Tank bags, my Airport Accelerator and Retrospective 10, cover about 95% of my camera bag needs. The other very specific 5% is handled very nicely by the Access 18PL from Kata Bags.

   This is my smallest bag (at least for the D4. I have a couple of smaller bags for the D3200 that I may talk about later, but probably not since they aren't in production anymore so there wouldn't be much point.) This is the one I use when my main lens will be the 70-200, or I just need to go really, really light load. This bag will hold the D4 with the 70-200 attached. If you unzip the bottom expander it will even hold it with the lens hood attached in shooting position. The downside to that is that once you open the expansion, there is no padding on the bottom of the bag to cushion the lens, but this is mitigated by the fact that you have the hood on and the hood will be between any hazard and the ground.

  The top closure has two seals, a double zipper and a quick clip. With the zippers unzipped and just the quick clip holding the flap shut, this bag lets you run and gun with a full size pro body, 70-200mm lens, with or without the hood, quick and easy access to the camera but protected and easy to carry when not in use. True holster bag. And that is how I use it. This bag comes out when I need the big lens on and not much else. There are two side pockets which make use of the space between the lens body and the edges of the camera body. One is larger than the other and will hold a speed light nicely, the SB910 fits easily. It can hold another lens, but not another pro zoom comfortably. It will take the 24-70, but that one is bulky enough that it pushes the camera sideways in the bag a bit and makes it hard to draw or re-holster. It would hold a standard slimmer zoom just fine though, not sure about other primes because I don't have any to test. The smaller pocket is perfect for my 50mm.

  That's my usual load out when I use this bag- D4 with the 70-200 mounted ready to go in the main pocket, speed light in the larger external pocket, 50mm and some business cards in the smaller outside pocket. There are a couple of small organizer pockets inside the main compartment that hold spare batteries. That's about it. It holds it all comfortably, the bag is very lightweight and the shoulder strap is comfortable and very grippy. There is also a convenient grab handle on the top flap.

    Not a lot of wasted or extra space in this bag. It's a bare bones, specific purpose item. But when it comes time to fulfill that purpose it does so exceptionally well. And that is the third and currently final entry into my camera bag trifecta.

Gear Review: Think Tank Retrospective Ten Camera Bag

    Bag review number two. Started off a bit back with a review of my large kitchen sink bag, the Airport Accelerator. That one is awesome for carrying everything while traveling, but it is not a shoot out of day bag. I have two bags I use for that purpose, the first and slightly larger of the two is the Think Tank Retrospective 10.  As you may have guessed, I am becoming quite the fan of Think Tank products.  What can I say, they make good gear. Very well thought out, good attention to even the smallest details, and lots of pleasant surprises in their gear.

   

    The retrospective is my go to bag for a day or days out shooting. I carry everything to wherever I am going in the Accelerator, then transfer what I need for the day into the retrospective and go. It is small enough to carry around all day without being obnoxious, and reconfigurable enough to give a lot of options for what you can pack into it. I've loaded it several ways but I'll start with my most recent shoot,  the San Diego Fringe Festival. I went into a bit more detail on that one in my last post, but I didn't know what the different venues and shows were going to bring to the table, so I packed for anything. Here is what I put into the bag for the weekend:

 That's the D4 with a 24-70mm, hood attached in shooting position. 

70-200 with hood reversed

SB910 flash

Lumiquest soft box

50mm prime

Carry Speed strap

spare batteries

  The pro body is almost too big for the bag, but it does fit and everything closes. The 50mm is on the opposite side from the 70-200. I wound up folding the flash to 90 degrees and putting it on top of the 50mm in the same pocket so the outside pocket was more free for my pocket stuff and the iPad. The lumiquest went into the rear pocket, which is covered by the open flap. That pocket is actually designed to hold an ipad, but I needed it for the soft box and the mini fit up front just fine. There are also slim pockets on either end that I keep business cards and filters in. Inside of the main front compartment there are some organizer pockets as well that can't be seen in this image. 

  It also wound up holding my iPad mini, wallet, phone and keys to keep my pockets empty and therefor quiet while I was shooting. There was still more room in the bag after all that, I could have thrown in another flash, and although I won't know for sure until I get one, I think that instead of the 50mm I could have thrown in a 14-24mm. So- what I am saying is that I think this bag will hold the holy trinity of lenses and a nikon pro body with enough room left for a couple of speedlights and misc toys. There are a few different versions of the bag, but I think this is the perfect size. That's a nice point, but it isn't what really sets this bag apart in my view. There are plenty of bags out there that are similarly sized (believe me, I looked at most of them) What sets this one apart are the little Think Tank details and small extras.

    UPDATE- It will fit the holy trinity. Tested this weekend and I was able to carry the D4 with 24-70 attached hood in shooting position, the 70-200 and the 14-24mm along with two speed lights and miscellaneous gear. 

    For starters, looks. This does not look like your typical camera bag. Unless you are a photographer it would be easy to mistake this for an overpacked messenger bag, especially in the pinestone (mine) or blue, not sure about the black, that one looks more traditional, one of the reasons I went with the tan. This doesn't really look like it is packing $10k worth of camera gear. Good for wandering around cities and traveling. 

   Another handy feature you can see above is the grab handle on the top, really convenient when you need to move the bag around while sitting in your car and don't feel like dealing with the shoulder strap. Speaking of which, the shoulder strap and pad are very comfortable, even when the bag is loaded to the max, and is easily adjustable. The attachments are all solidly sews with metal hardware, plenty robust enough to carabiner a coffee mug or water bottle to. The pockets and divider system are all well thought out and pretty reconfigurable given the size of the bag. But there are even more little details. The biggest and most awesome one for the type of shooting I do is silencers. The main pockets are all held closed with velcro tabs. Substantial ones for the main pocket. With both tabs fully velcro'ed together I can turn the fully loaded bag upside down and shake it and nothing is going to rip the cover open and fall out. But if I need to do a lens change during a quiet moment in a theatre or dance performance, the last thing I want to do is rip open massive velcro closure tabs. Think Tank gets it. Each velcro tab has a built in silencer. Basically a flap of the opposite side of the velcro that you can fold over to keep the pockets from sealing. The bag won't be secure, but it can be opened and shut with no noise whatsoever. Or you can go medium and silence one main tab while still using the other to hold the top down. I just go total silent during the performance and re-set the bag to fully shut after curtain call.  It's one of those little things that is so simple and obvious I can't believe it isn't used everywhere, which is the mark of genius. 

    So, that's pretty much it. Right size for a day of shooting where you need to carry more than bare bones but don't want to haul everything around. It blends in and doesn't shout "STEAL ME, I AM A CAMERA BAG!" from the top of the mountain. It is very easy to work out of and has a lot of little touches that make it a pleasure to use and perfect for the environments I find myself working in. This is my go to bag for almost everything other than heavy travel. The only thing it can't do is hold the 70-200 mounted with hood in shooting position. 

Shooting on the Fringes.... San Diego's First Fringe Festival

 

   Spent last weekend shooting shows at the first ever San Diego Fringe Festival. Posted about it a while back when I signed on as one of their sponsoring photographers and did a commercial shoot for their promo use. That shoot leads to the really cool awesomeness I discovered as I was looking through the show schedules, on June 28th the San Diego Union Tribune Theater section did a spread on Fringe, and one of my pics was the cover photo. So I even though they got the shot from Fringe and didn't credit me, I have now been published in the SD Union Trib! That was a super bonus.

    I first got involved with Fringe in New Orleans, when I was working with the Whirly Bones Variety Arts Collective. It was a blast and I also got to see a lot of really amazing shows. I was totally stoked when I found out Fringe was coming to San Diego and definitely wanted to be involved. Plus, multiple shows running on multiple stages back to back packed over a week is an awesome laboratory for a performance photographer. Figured I would get lots and lots of practice as well as the chance for some good exposure and networking. Of course, I wound up getting a lot less shooting time than I initially hoped for thanks to some unplanned travel for the Navy, but I did manage to get in two days of Fringy goodness.

   I was able to capture a lot of great shots, you can see them all here and I got to learn a few things and hone some techniques a bit. I got to really work both the 24-70 and the 70-200. The Dance shows were challenging because I had not seen the dances before and in most cases I wasn't familiar with the music either. Due to good audience turnout I was also forced to shoot from the side, far downstage right, so a lot of the time I was at a bad angle to really catch what was going on. Sometimes the angle helped, but mostly it hurt.

It was better during the day on Friday when I had a bit more freedom to move around, but I can really see the advantage of trying to shoot a full dress run rehearsal rather than an actual show anytime that option is open to me. But not knowing what was coming forced me to change my shooting style. I had been in the rookie habit of looking only through the viewfinder and pretty much closing my second eye. Therefore if I didn't see it in the viewfinder I didn't know it was happening. This is pretty much the way everyone learns to shoot, but most pros, especially sports or journalism photographers, learn to keep the second eye open so they are more aware of what is going on all around them. I have worked on this a bit before, but never to the extent I did this weekend. Shooting horizontal, shooting vertical, camera to left eye, camera to right eye,  trying to catch all the action. I won't say I have mastered the art yet, but I can say that by the last show Sunday night I sure a heck was a lot better at it and much more fluid than I was when I started Friday morning.

   Another lesson I (re)learned was ALWAYS CHECK YOUR SETTINGS BEFORE YOU START TO SHOOT!!!!! No, I am not screaming at you, I am screaming at me in the hopes that one of these days it will stick. I totally forgot that I had dialed in -1.7ev for one of the HDR frames I shot before the fireworks show. Apparently I never took that setting out, and didn't notice during the fireworks shooting since the exposures were all so long anyway. But it took me until the middle of the third show I shot to finally figure out why everything was coming out so dark. The first shows were in low lighting anyway for the most part, nothing Excalibur couldn't cope with (thank goodness, even with the -1.7stop compensation all the shots were still useable) but since the lighting was dark anyway it never occurred to me that my shots were coming out darker for a different reason. I noticed the shots were noisier than Excalibur generally provides, but my rationalization was that it was because I was bumping up the shutter speed to make sure I was freezing the kicks and leaps of some very high energy dance numbers. Luckily the third show was in an open space with a lot of natural light coming through the skylights, so when those shots were all looking too dark I realized something was up. So- bottom line- listen to that little voice when it notices your gear isn't working quite like you expect it to. Your gear may be broken, but it also may be some simple oversight in the setting department. You can have the best gear in the universe, but it you don't use it right, it won't perform. Lucky for me Excalibur was able to make up for my error in this case. But if you look at the "Multiple Exposures" (ah, yes, I did love shooting that show, perfectly named for photography-  I was tempted to play with the multiple exposure capabilities of the D4, but didn't want to miss anything) gallery, all of those were shot at -1.7ev dialed in, so had to use a bit more aggressive noise reduction in post. But I did get to work with some really fun lighting situations throughout the weekend.

    The other thing I learned was that although the camera can be a great insulator to keep the photographer separated and apart from what you are shooting, sometimes it isn't enough and it's very difficult to shoot when something brings you to tears. One of the shows was a dark, Tim Burton style tragicomedy called Oyster Boy- the story of a couple who conceive right after a strange dinner and wind up with a very deformed son with an oyster shell head. They are shunned by the community and the (spoiler alert) Oyster boy dies in an old school Little Mermaid style and returns to the sea. This show was really well done, lots of people in the audience were laughing and crying at the same time, but this show really touched me on a deep level. Those who have been following the blog for a while (both of you) and those who know me, know that the namesake of the business is my son, who recently celebrated his first birthday. One of my earliest memories from childhood was one of my playmates dying of lukemia. Another one of the family friends had a disabled son that was a frequent playmate. As a naval officer, I have had several people I work with who have had special needs children. I recently learned one of my former Chiefs' daughter passed away after a far too short life in a wheelchair. Honestly, I don't know how they do it. Being a parent is terrifying enough for me. I wasn't sure I was ready to be a father at all, I still am not sure most of the time. But I was terrified of having something not being normal. Anyone who knows me knows I am not a religious person. Religion screwed up my life badly enough that I am just now starting to feel like I have recovered from it. Me and god aren't exactly on the best of terms. But for nine months, I was praying to every different power I could think of that my little dragon would be healthy. So far all seems normal and good, and I cannot believe how thankful I am for that. It's hard enough being a parent for a healthy toddler, I put those parents who deal with challenges I hope to never know in the same category I put firefighters and my other heroes. I admire their strength and courage, and while I hope I would find the same capabilities in me if the need arose, I thank the universe ever day that I haven't had to test that theory and beg to keep things that way. Anyway, serious props to the cast of Oyster Boy, who was able to infuse a puppet with enough life to rip into the deepest fears of my soul and make me laugh through the tears. At least the tears were on the viewfinder side of the camera and not the lens side, so they didn't screw up the shots.

 Finally, I learned that one person shows are particularly challenging. Just shooting one person taking up a stage for 30-45 minutes or longer.... it's hard to stay focused on the shooting, and hard to continue to try and find different images and ways to shoot the same person doing basically the same thing over that span of time. But losing focus for an instant could mean missing the key shot. I definitely missed a few, but I did catch come good moments.

  Fringe was a wonderful experience, glad I got to catch more of it that I thought I was going to be able to given my last minute orders from the Navy, looking forward to being more involved next year!

Gear Review: Think Tank Airport Accelerator Camera Backpack

  So, a while back I posted an initial impression on the child resistant qualities of my Airport Accelerator Bag from Think Tank Photo. I promised a more thorough review later... well, later is now. I have used it for a few short festival trips and just did a pair of cross country flights with it, so I think I can now give the bag a fair review. Overall, I am a huge fan of Think Tank. The company was built by photographers for photographers. I have two of their bags for different purposes, I will post another review of my Retrospective 10 in the near future. Between the two of them they cover 95% of my camera carrying needs.

   Ok- so let's jump right in and get to it. For starters, everything I have ever seen from Think Tank very well made. From pulling it out of the shipping box it just screams quality. Even the little details- internal zippers have pockets to slide into at the end of their tracks so they won't scratch your gear. There is an included rain cover. The waist belt is adjustable and removable if you don't use it (also can be replaced with a beefier one that is part of their modular system, if you need more capacity for some reason)

  This is not your everyday carry around and shoot out of bag. This is the bag I use as a storage locker for all my gear, as well as to travel loaded for bear. Pretty much all my gear other than reflectors, umbrellas, stands and tripods lives in this bag full time, so if I have to head out quick I don't have to think, I can just grab the whole enchilada and go.
    My normal configuration and loading for the bag:

  I keep saying one of these days I will make a neater setup and organize the dividers, but not right now.  The quick list of what's inside:

D4 with 24-70mm attached, hood on and in shooting position
D3200 with 17-55mm hood reversed
70-200 with hood reversed

50mm

35mm

SB910 with stand and all factory filters
SB710 with stand and all factory filters
Two carry speed straps
Phottix Odin trigger system with two remote units and main controller

Full gel sets for each flash

Spare batteries for both cameras as well as for flashes and remotes

Honl 8in traveller soft box 

Business cards, memory cases and cards, and lots of assorted odds and ends.
Not visible but also inside when traveling are my 15in macbook pro and my ipad mini, as well as card readers, battery chargers and power cables for all.

   So, all that and without even working too hard on the organizational system there is still one bay left over that will hopefully soon be filled by a 14-24mm. The bag probably weights around 30lbs fully loaded, but it is well balanced and feel much lighter on the back. I wouldn't want to lug it around for days straight, but it was no problem at all running through the ticket counter lines, security lines and all over several airports between San Diego and Rhode Island and back. The only gripe I can even halfway make is that when it's fully loaded the laptop pocket is a little tight and I had to pull out the soft box, slide the laptop in, then slide the soft box back in. The only problem I have had with the bag is that I didn't pay attention one time when I just shoved the computer in really hard and fast and the corner of my spreck cover caught the edge of the laptop pocket and tore the lining. I am actually quite sure Think Tank would repair or replace this under warranty if I asked, but since it was totally my fault for not paying attention I haven't asked. It wasn't poor construction, it was fabric versus a sharp cornered edge.

   So- you can fit everything except the kitchen sink into this bag. For the trip to Rhode Island, instead of carrying a second bag for personal stuff, I left out the D3200 and used that section to carry my toiletries, an external drive I needed while I was there, sunglasses and a few other personal effects. I used the tripod pocket as a water bottle pocket and made it my sole carry on. It is primarily a backpack, so obviously it has backpack straps. There is also a beefy grab handle on the top of the bag as well as another grab handle on the side opposite the tripod pocket, which was very helpful when tossing the fully loaded beast into the overhead compartment.

  As you can see, there are also a couple of D rings and loops on the shoulder straps to attach other gear. Think Tank also makes a camera strap that attaches to these D rings in case you do want to use this as your working bag. If I had to, I could see reconfiguring this bag to carry a limited amount of gear and split off some space for clothing/etc and use this as a sole bag for a weekend getaway and daypack.

  So- the bag holds a lot. You get that. But it is designed and marketed primarily as an airline travel bag. Think Tank says this bag meets all international and domestic carry on requirements. For once I actually used the little size tester at the counter just so I could comment on the result in this review- yes, it fits. It fit easily into the overhead compartments on both the regular and short hop planes I took. But, what happens if the overhead bins are full of other people's luggage, or something random, like a flight attendant? (not making this up, it was her way of staying out of the way while people boarded... southwest seems to value creativity in their hiring process....)

 It definitely fits under the middle seat with enough space left for my 5'7" frame to have some leg room left. The middle and isle seats were another matter. It fit, but it was longways and there was no leg room. Short answer- kick the flight attendant out and get an overhead bin spot and you are fine. Otherwise, if you are short like me it's still workable under the seat if you have to do it.

  So, it holds a lot of gear and it fills it's primary advertised function of flying as carry on luggage. There are still a few more features. The top of the bag has a pocket that is perfect for business cards. There is a key fob strap/clip and organizer pockets for pens and the like in the exterior pockets. There is a specific iPad designed pocket as well. The bag is also set up to carry a tripod. There is a stretch pocket on the side of the bag for the tripod feet, and several loops up the full side of the bag that are designed to use with an included velcro strap to secure the top of the tripod. On the trip, I only used the stretch pocket to carry a water bottle, but I have tested my full size tripod and it works just fine with the system. Two out of three legs in the stretch pocket and the strap around the top. An even better and quicker solution is to use a mini tripod like the MeFoto Backpacker, which eliminates the need for a strap and carries just fine using only the stretch pocket. (if I left out the 70-200 or reconfigured a bit, I could easily fit it into the inside of the bag as well). In the image below you can see the loops for the velcro tripod strap where you could secure the top of a full size tripod. The velcro strap is included, but is removeable so it isn't dangling when you aren't using it.

  The last little feature of the bag is a built in cable lock system.

 You can set your own combo, and it is designed basically to lock around a table leg or something and into the main zippers of the camera compartment. It's a think cable, wouldn't really stop someone with wire cutters or probably even EMT shears and a desire to take your bag. I guess it would provide a deterrent from a simple grab and run theft if you were in a coffee shop, or if you clipped it to something while you were on location shooting. But really, if I was going to get up in a coffee shop or airport bar and head to the restroom, I would sling the bag onto my back and take it with me. If I was worried about where I had to leave it during a shoot, again, it would be on my back. As long as it is in my sight, I am comfortably certain that if anyone does try to grab it and make a run for it, the bag is heavy enough that I will be able to catch up to them easily. And if anyone can manage to outrun me while carrying that bag loaded with all my gear- they can have it, I wouldn't want to mess with the person who could do that anyway unless I had a really big gun. But it is there, and maybe others might find it more useful than me.

  So, the bag has so far survived an inquisitive, drool monster toddler, two cross country flights and three festivals. It hold a hell of a lot of gear while remaining easy to carry and handle. It works well as a carry on bag and fits anywhere you need it to on the plane. It can be added to if you need to bring the kitchen sink with you as well and even has a lock if you are into luggage shibari. It isn't cheap, but quality never is. It's a purchase I have not regretted for a second and I have a feeling that the bag is going to last for longer than the gear in it will.

   Oh, and for the record, when I sent Think Tank the images of the little dragon climbing all over the bag, they sent me a free memory case in return- but other than adding to my already great impression of the company, that free gift in no way biased this review.

Tips and Tricks for Fireworks photography .... what I learned on my first attempt.

  I can't claim to be an expert nor will I claim these are the best fireworks images out there. But I was really happy overall with my first attempts, especially considering the tremendous handicap of not having a cable/remote release and resultant blur from having to operate the shutter manually. This will really be a recap of what I learned on my first run at shooting a fire works show. Most of these things were things I learned theoretically from research and finally was able to put to a practical test.

  Lesson one- gear- You can get good pics of fireworks with a point and shoot, or your phone. But the DSLR is helpful because you have a lot more control. It's still luck, but your chances are a lot better. Much less shutter lag, longer and more easily controlled exposure times, etc. There are workarounds for all of those, but if you have the big guns, this is a good time to break them out and use them.
  Regardless of the camera you are using, a tripod is a necessity (or some convenient camera stabilizing device) since you will be doing long exposures. I had packed light for the trip to Rhode Island and wasn't thinking about fireworks when I packed, so I left my tripod at home. When I decided to shoot the fireworks, I needed something, luckily one of the local shops, Hunt's Photo and Video had some small travel tripods on sale. (not to mention they were a really cool bunch of folks, hung out with them for a bit) I wound up grabbing a MeFoto Backpacker. In red and black, of course. Would rather have gone with the sturdier RoadTrip, but they were out of stock. Will probably do a longer review later, but  the backpacker is certainly convenient and portable. It isn't as sturdy as my main pod and I wouldn't put Excalibur on it with anything bigger than the 24-70mm, but it held that combo for the shoot and it will be more than sufficient for the D3200 as well.
  A cable release or some other form of remote shutter release is also mandatory. I was using my triggertrap app on my iPhone, worked great for the test shots, then of course it stopped working when it was showtime, so all of these shots were done with finger on the shutter release, on a lightweight tripod that could only just hold the camera weight, so if you look closely you'll see some blur, especially in the foreground elements. I have since learned that when the phone dips below a certain battery percentage, the app automatically cuts out. Note to self, charge phone prior to planning to use as a remote release.

  Lesson two- Get there early. Scope out the area, find a good place to set up, figure out what lens you will use and what settings and get everything dialed in. Then you may even have time to enjoy a nice cold beer and play around a bit with some HDR experimentation.

  So- what is set up? As mentioned before, I went with the 24-70mm, the general consensus of advice online was to go with the widest lens available, so that is what I did. It made extra sense in this case because I didn't know how spread out the bursts would be or where exactly they would come from. All I could get beforehand was that they would be in the general direction of the houses shown above in the HDR shot. There seemed to be two main schools of thought regarding how to frame the shots. One was to concentrate on the fireworks themselves, to the exclusion of all else.

 

  This method really focuses on the colors and the patterns. It's artistic, and there is definitely an argument for it. The other school of thought is that it is better to include some sort of foreground elements for context.

   As you can see, I shot a bit of both, but I think I like the images with foreground elements better overall, so I find myself preferring that framing. Plus, it's easier to crop out the foreground and focus on just the burst than it would be to magically insert something in the foreground after the fact. That's it for framing.

  Next up is focus. This is another main advantage of the DSLR over a point and shoot or a phone. Unless you go into menus and disable focus, they will try to focus for each shot which causes delays and missed shots possibly mis-focused images if the AF sensor kept trying to lock on different parts of the expanding burst. Actually, unless you change settings on your DSLR, it will try to do the same thing, the DSLR just generally has a better AF system which means you are more likely to get away with it. Again, there are two ways to address this, and I tried them both. In this case both worked, I really can't say as to whether I have a preference to either. Whichever route you choose, the most important thing is that you need to have a way to disable the autofocus on your camera. You could use a manual only lens, or if your lens lets you, you can switch it from AF to manual focus. It may be a menu choice on your camera. This isn't an issue at all for me, since always shoot using back button focus, vice having my AF tied to the shutter. (if you aren't familiar with back button focus, here is a quick primer- it's a good thing once you are used to it.) Excalibur has a dedicated AF-ON button for both horizontal and vertical shooting.  The D3200 has a programmable AE-Lock button that I keep set up as an AF on. The first method- and most likely the best one of the two, relies on hyperfocal distance.   If this is a new term for you, the basic idea is that for each combination of focal length, camera sensor and aperture, there will be a specific distance at which, if you focus, everything from that distance to infinity will be acceptably sharp. Google away for a way more technical explanation as well as methods to calculate it. I use a simple app on either my phone or iPad. For example, on the D4 at 24mm, F11 (the starting point for my shots, coincidentally, the hyperfocal distance was 5ft8in. So I found something 5ft8in from me, focused on that, then didn't touch the AF-ON button again until I had to. On older manual focus only lenses, you can just set them to infinity and be ok, but AF lenses due to the way they focus, need to be able to go past infinity, so this doesn't work on AF lenses. Later on, as I changed zoom on my lens and changed aperture, either of which changes the hyperfocal distance, I didn't want to take the time to look up the correct distance, find something at that distance to focus on, then reframe my shots. Excalibur has one badass AF system, especially coupled with professional glass,  so once I started changing things, I just adjusted my settings, waited for  a good bust, and triggered the AF-ON button and locked in on the burst, then left it alone until I changed settings again. The disadvantage of this was that obviously I lost some shots because I was using those bursts to set focus, but it was much faster than the hyperfocal method when changing things up mid-stream. The hyperfocal advantage is that you can pre-set and be ready to go a the first burst. But both worked very well. My only focus issues came from me moving the camera since I had to manually trip the shutter and from the environment- boats move in the water during long exposure, and the bursts were moving due to gravity and wind.

  Settings: Based on my research and the advice of other much more experienced pros, I started out with the lowest native ISO on my camera, ISO 100 for Excalibur. It will go down to 50 but that is not native, it's extrapolated. Again, google away to get the way too technical explanations of this, but it's better in general to stick with your sensors native range for whatever you are shooting, low or high ISO. Started at F11, again based on recommendations and research. You want to shoot small apertures to keep the sky and any light pollution dark over the longer exposures, the fire works will provide plenty of light for them, pretty much think of them as flashes with the most insanely high guide numbers ever. I am sure someone has probably worked out firework guide numbers, but if so they had way to much free time.
   Shutter speed: Again, a few schools of thought. You can pick a preset shutter time, depending on your camera, most of the guides I saw recommended anywhere from 3-6 seconds. The main problem with preset shutter speeds is that once you hit the trigger you have no control, you are going to get what you are going to get. So what I did was set my camera to Bulb mode. That way, when I saw the rockets going up I could trip the shutter and hold it open as long as I needed to get the burst. (this is why the remote release is so important, over 13 second exposures that is quite a bit of camera shake from my finger). I started with 2-3 seconds, but I found that that wasn't giving me the length of trails I wanted. The shells were also spaced out far enough that that would only give me a small portion of each burst. I found the images I liked best tended to be around the 10-13 second timeframe. Basically I started the shutter when I saw the first shell burst and ended it whenever I felt like I had enough. I stopped counting seconds pretty quickly into the show. When I noticed I was starting to shoot longer exposures, I bumped the aperture down to F14, but I am not sure that was necessary. It didn't seem to really make much difference.
 
   Ultimately, the nice thing about shooting fire works that pleasantly surprised me, was how easy it was. Really, any combination of small aperture and long shutter speed seemed to work out just fine, it was all a matter of personal preference on what I liked better. Next time I may try to shoot wide open at a higher shutter speed to get some well frozen bursts instead of smooth trails, but I didn't get around to that this time around. Two other things I found in my research that I didn't get the chance to test this time were using a flash at some point in the exposure to define your foreground objects and capturing multiple bursts by leaving the shutter open for very extended timeframes and covering the lens with something between bursts. Again, this was just my first experiment  so there lots left to try.

   Overall, I am pretty happy with how well my first attempt at capturing fireworks turned out. I did play with some of the exposures in post and I also found that I preferred to bump up the saturation and vibrance sliders a few points, but I was shooting raw with no picture controls so your mileage may vary, as well as how you like to cook your images. You can see the full album here and let me know what you like. That was a long and rambling post, so in case you are reading this right before a fireworks show,  here is the cliff notes version:

1- Use the best camera you can get  your hands on.
2- Use a tripod
3- Use a remote release mechanism
4- Go Full Manual mode. ISO, aperture, Shutter speed.
5- Turn off Auto Focus or at least decouple it from the shutter button
6- Pre-focus using hyperfocal distance or focus on a sacrificial burst
7- Start with the lowest native ISO you have available
8- Start with F11-16, set the shutter to bulb mode and trigger manually for 3-15 seconds as a starting point.
9- occasionally check your LCD and adjust your recipe to taste as necessary.

Happy Independence Day!

ps- one final lesson learned- if it's a popular show and you are anywhere near the thick of the crowd, especially if it's a small town with only one main road in or out- maybe bring your computer and start uploading your images right after the show, because unless you parked outside of town, you aren't going anywhere anytime soon. I actually felt like I was back in the Burning Man Exodus line for a bit. Or a snickers commercial.