Fulldigi

Thanks to our guest blogger Kevin Simpson’s posting on “how to shoot fireworks,” I thought it would be a good idea to rehash last year’s posting on the subject with a few tips that I have learned since that time. The Fourth of July celebrations are just around the corner, and if you have a nice day long celebration planned, here are some helpful tips to keep the photography running smoothly all day.

I often come across several questions (throughout the various photography forums which I like to visit) regarding “how to shoot fireworks photos,” and although I find lots of good information, they are often bits and pieces scattered about. Since I myself have had (what I consider to be) success in shooting fireworks, I thought I would share these helpful tips for those of you who will be bringing your cameras along to the Fourth of July celebrations.

Daytime Shooting:
If you are planning a picnic in the park or a day at the beach, there are a few things to keep in mind in order to get the best possible photos. If the weather is co-operating with you, and you have a nice sunny day to shoot, be sure to bring along your circular polarizers or ND filters for your lenses. They will not only help cut down the glare of the hot sun, but they will also help you achieve those deep blue skies. I would also recommend bringing your tripod for the evening, but leaving it in the car during the day. It’s not going to be necessary for your daytime shooting, and will only get in either your or other people’s way. Chances are wherever you go to celebrate, it’s going to be busy and we want to make sure that we are carrying as little gear as possible. 

If you are celebrating the daytime with loved ones, slap on a nice 50mm or your favourite portrait lens, and take as many candid shots as you can of your family and friends having a ball without the standard “pose for the camera” shots (although sometimes those can be fun too – especially the goofy ones). You’ll find that shooting these types of photos captures the memorable spirit of the celebration. If you are celebrating with children, don’t forget to switch your camera’s shooting mode to “continuous” or “burst” mode and fire off rapid successions of shots of the kids playing. When you go back to preview them, you will find some great expressions captured.

Night Shooting (Fireworks):
As the daylight begins to fade away, you may want to break out your flash unit for some nice portraits against the sunset, along with your tripod for stability. While there is still some available light as the sun sets, you will find that your portraits and scenic shots of the celebrations and location will have a great tone to the images, thanks to the magic of the low angled lighting from the sunset. Now is probably a good time to also stake out your spot for shooting the upcoming fireworks!

Bring Your Tripod:
First and foremost, the single most important thing you need to have when shooting fireworks is a tripod. Whether you are shooting with a point and shoot camera, or a fancy digital SLR, you simply won’t be able to hold the camera steady enough by hand due to the relatively long exposure times required in fireworks photography. Tripods are a MUST! With that being said, you should also remember that if you are planning on brining a tripod to an event such as the Fourth of July (or any fireworks celebrations for that matter), there are bound to be plenty of people all trying to claim enough space to stand or sit comfortably, so you’ll want to go a little early to set up your tripod before the crowds arrive.

Switch to Manual Focus:
Before we get into shutter speeds and apertures, the one important thing to do first is switch your camera to MANUAL focus, then focus to infinity. In very low lighting situations such as shooting fireworks, your camera’s autofocus is going to have a heck of a time trying to decide where exactly to focus, plus you want your entire scene to be as sharp as possible. Setting your camera to focus on infinity in manual mode will ensure that your shots are as focussed as possible, regardless of your zooming and framing of your scene.

Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO:
When shooting fireworks, you’ll achieve great results if you shoot with a fairly long exposure time. If you are using a point and shoot digital camera, most of them have a dedicated “fireworks” mode or setting. If you are shooting with a digital SLR, you’ll want to use anywhere from a 4-5 second exposure, shooting at an aperture of f11 or even f16. You also want to eliminate any noise in your images, so I would recommend keeping your ISO setting down to 100 or 200 maximum. To achieve the best results, you will be best off to change your camera’s mode to MANUAL so that you can set these exposures and shutter speeds manually. One of the best tools to have with you (in addition to your tripod) would be a shutter release cable. That way, you can set up the initial framing of your shots, and control the shutter while still getting to watch those beautiful fireworks. Also, a shutter release cable would be especially userful if you want to use your camera’s bulb mode to capture even longer exposures.

Another experiment you can do, is to set your aperture very small, say at f22 or even f32, and shoot with an exposure time of 20-30 seconds. You’ll be able to catch several fireworks in the frame, and the results can be outstanding!

Adjusting Settings:
Here’s how you can adjust your settings to achieve the best results.

Fireworks too bright/dark: Adjust your aperture to control the brightness. Smaller apertures (higher f-numbers) will darken the fireworks if they are too bright. Opening the aperture wider (lower f-numbers) will brighten them if they appear too dark.

Firework trails too long/short: This is where you adjust the shutter speed. If your trails are too long, then your shutter is open too long. You can increase the shutter speed for shorter streaks of light, or lengthen it to make those light trails longer.

Breaking the Rules: Sometimes breaking the rules can work extremely well too. Try super long exposures (but don’t forget to close your aperture down) or very short exposures (open your aperture here) and you’ll get some creative shots!

Framing Your Shots:
In framing your shots, it will all depend on the type of photos you are after. If you like the closeup and tight shots of the fireworks blast as in the above image, you will want to bring a zoom lens which can go to at least 200mm. That will allow your camera to get up close and personal with those fireworks. If you prefer to capture the fireworks in a landscape or “entire scene” view, bring a nice wide angle lens. Here’s a look at what a wide angle lens would be likely to capture:

Last year, I brought along a 16-45mm wide angle for the above shot, and a 50-200mm lens for some closeups such as the first image in this posting. If you haven’t learned to switch your lenses on the fly quickly, then spend some time the night before (July 3rd) practicing. I would spend about 5 min with your zoom lens to get some cool closeups, then switch to your wide angle for the rest of the event. The finale moment of any fireworks show is usually quite spectacular, and you’ll want to capture the scene as a whole.

Post Processing Fireworks Photography:
As Kevin mentioned in yesterday’s posting on shooting fireworks, you may find that as the show goes on, there is lots of smoke in the air. While this can sometimes produce some cool shots too, you may find that it only increases the amount of reflected light in your scene, leaving the skies in your fireworks shots looking a bit hazy. Post processing fireworks photography is probably one of the most easy types of photography to work with. All you really need to do is make your skies black, and your fireworks vibrant. If you are processing in RAW, you can either use your “Blacks” slider or curves to darken the shadow areas of your images. I personally prefer to take my skies all the way to a nice deep black, but of course your preference prevails in your own photography. Next, I like to boost the saturation and/or vibrance of the colours up approximately +20 for each. I find that it gives the firework trails a very nice pop, and vibrant colour blend. Lastly, all that’s really left to do is some sharpening. Sharpen your photos preferably in Photoshop or Elements, and you are finished – How simple is that!

I hope these quick and easy tips will come in handy, and help you to further enjoy your Fourth of July holiday weekend by snapping some fantastic fireworks photography!

The members of the Tech Guy flickr group have sent in their questions (thanks orbitgal for compiling the list) and Chris answers them.

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Unlike the serif font family, these hand drawn fonts looked less serious but they tend to give and convey strong human touch wherever they are applied. Hand-drawn fonts are hard to stand on it’s own, but they are utmost perfect for these following situations:

• Hand drawn websites
  
  If you are inspired to give your new web design a sketchy or hand-drawn look and feel, these fonts are without a doubt the perfect math to the layout. Click here for more examples of Hand-drawn style websites.
  
  via bootb
• Guides and instructions
  Whether its a storyboard, an online guide & tutorial or merely an attempt to help user understand an illustration better, arrow, pointer and text guide gets the job done seamlessly. In terms of text, typography that mimics human writing tend to make reading and understanding things easier. Here’s a good example:
  
  via woork
• Comic and dialogues
  You don’t need Marvel to tell you Helvetica won’t fit for the text in drawing and illustrations.

Free Hand-drawn Fonts

Here are 40 high quality hand-drawn fonts you can download and apply on your design. Please check with the creator if you are intended to use it for commercial products.

Alpha Mack

Analgesics

Bubbly Frog

Christopher Hand

Dali

Fabulous 50s

Fail

FFF Tusj

Daniel

Note this

Pisan

Rabiohead

Glider Girls

Green Piloww

Grutch Shaded

Hand of Sean

HandVetica

Jamaistevie

James Fajardo

Estrya’s Handwriting

Jerry’s handwriting

Joe Hand 2

Journal

Just Me Again Down Here

Later On

Love Ya Like A Sister

Luna Bar

Mia’s Scribblings

Pappo’s Blues Band

Peixe Frito

Positiv-A

Rock Show Whiplash

Salamander

Sophie, Regular

The Quiet Scream

Thurston Erc

Two Turtle Doves

WC RoughTrad Bta

Windsong

Back in the ’80s, Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Western Europe, with unemployment as high as 17 percent. But the scrappy nation had one advantage: It always invested in education, so while the Irish were poor, they were smart.

American tech companies like Dell and Intel eventually realized the island was full of underemployed brainiacs and opened up offices there. The Irish were soon performing tasks such as developing software and working in pharmaceutical manufacturing and research. By the late ’90s, the influx of jobs turned the country around: Ireland was filled with people who were smart and also wealthy, among the richest in Europe. The Celtic Tiger was born.

Is there another country today with the same potential, one that could erupt in an intelligence-driven boom? Yep, though it’s probably not one you’d expect: Cuba.

I visited Cuba a few years ago and was surprised at how much it reminded me of Ireland. Everyone was smart, skilled, and seemed hungry for opportunities to improve their lives—perhaps even more so than the Irish had been back in the ’80s, because they’d spent decades under Fidel Castro’s human-rights-crushing thumb. Now that President Obama is talking about opening up trade, Cuba experts predict that the country could explode with creativity and entrepreneurial innovation. “There’s tremendous potential,” says Gustav Ranis, an economic-development expert at Yale.

Like the ’80s Irish, Cubans are eerily well educated, particularly for such an impoverished people. Education is one thing Castro has done right: 99.8 percent of adults are literate, and nearly a third have graduated from high school, many with the sort of vocational training in mechanics and farming the US foolishly let slip a generation ago. Based on UN statistics, one out of five young adults in Cuba graduates college.

Cubans also have a hacker mindset. They’ve needed it to handle the constant privation. They keep 50-year-old cars running with cobbled-together parts. They cadge gray-market Internet access by making friends with local officials—among the anointed few the government allows online. When Soviet food supplies vanished, Cubans turned to urban gardening.

If the US embargo ends, Cuba could become an Ireland-like high tech outsourcing resource. “They’ve got all the skills you need for software programming,” says Kenneth Flamm, professor of international affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Cubans, many of whom study English in school, would be particularly good at “localizing” US software for Latin American markets, Flamm says. Plus, Havana is only an hour’s flight from Miami, making it convenient for offshoring.

Medicine would be another potential area of growth. Cuban health care, particularly preventive care, has been amazingly good; Cuban life expectancy is on a par with that of the US. The country has poured millions into biotech, creating vaccines for meningitis B and hepatitis B. “Biotech and health tourism have really serious potential,” says Vicki Huddleston, a Brookings Institute expert on Cuba.

Mind you, white-collar jobs aren’t enough. Cuba has more than 11 million people, and gainfully employing that many requires tons of jobs in textiles, light industry, and agriculture. Organic farming, interestingly, could be big: Because the embargo has made it hard to get pesticides, Cuba has used comparatively little of them, which means much of the island is organic-ready, so long as it avoids the “resource curse” and stays away from too much mining and oil drilling. Retaining the social welfare net would also be crucial.

Obviously, this is blue-sky thinking. To really open up trade, the Castros will have to liberalize their repressive regime. (An independent journalist I met while visiting in January 2003 was arrested two months later.) There’s no telling if or when that will happen. But let’s hope it does. In sheer human potential, Cuba is an economic and technological miracle waiting to happen.

Email clive@clivethompson.net