Photographing Fireworks

November 5th, Firework Night, yes I know that we see fireworks every month of the year for some celebration or other but Firework Night or sometimes Bonfire Night, there is a magic in the air, that and the baked potatoes, sausages, toffee apples and mugs of Bovril. Photographing fireworks requires techniques specific to the subject and although you can try to wing-it a bit of advice and preparation is a good idea to get the best results. This tutorial by Barry at Free Photo Resources is well put together and covers all the important stuff. If you plan to get your camera out to capture those brilliant and brief moments of splendour read here first

By John_Brennan

Lytro a camera that allows you to determine focus after taking the picture

“After months of speculation, Lytro finally revealed their new technology camera. As most of you know, this camera allows you to take a photograph, and change the focus afterwards. This is possible because instead of capturing a single plane of light, the camera captures the entire light field. I was a little surprised at how small it is, but it does the job none the less. While I don’t think this camera is going to be a “game changer”, it certainly is one of the most exciting things to happen to the world of photography in recent memory. The 8GB version, which holds 350 photographs, costs $399 and comes in Electric Blue or Graphite. The 16BG version, which holds 750 photographs, costs $499 and comes in Red Hot.”…more

Since you’ll capture the color, intensity, and direction of all the light, you can experience the first major light field capability – focusing after the fact. Focus and re-focus, anywhere in the picture. You can refocus your pictures at anytime, after the fact.

And focusing after the fact, means no auto-focus motor. No auto-focus motor means no shutter delay. So, capture the moment you meant to capture not the one a shutter-delayed camera captured for you. – Lytro

“It’s a striking industrial design for those accustomed to cameras festooned with buttons, protruding lenses, scroll wheels, and knobs. But the biggest differences are on the inside.

Conventional digital cameras use lenses to focus a subject so it’s sharp on the image sensor. That means that for an in-focus part of the image, light from only one direction reaches the sensor. For light-field photography, though, light from multiple directions hits each patch of the sensor; the camera records this directional information, and after-the-shot computing converts it into something a human eye can understand.

The result is that a Lytro camera image is a 3D map of whatever was photographed, and that means people can literally decide what to focus on after they’ve taken the photo.”…more