I think I finally got the shot I want. partners castle fireworks 2 by Will Gearhart, on Flickr After years of working with film and digital, I finally got the picture I want. But I got it in three shots and had to piece it together. ; But there it is. ; Maybe needs a little more work. For three years I took pictures with the shutter at f/2 (the widest I could go on my G9) and shutter speed at 1/8th second (the longest I could go without blur) and ISO 1600 or 800 (varying results for grain and light) - and I got good stuff. This last weekend, I finally took a tripod down, got my spot 2 1/2 hours before the show and took my shots. ; Sort of random on the results because I was taking the shots with 2sec delay to minimize shake and 4, 8, or 10 second shutter speeds as I experimented. So I got the castle at the top of the show with a nice glow behind it. ; I got the firework ??? during the show. ; And the Partners after the show when they finally brought the lights up on them. I think i merged them pretty well using layers and erasing holes where I wanted the castle and the partners to come through. What do you think? Will G
Nice work Will! ; If you're using photoshop, you might want to look at using layer masks instead of erasing to combine shots like that. ; The advantage to using layer masks is that all of the information is still there so if you find a flaw with it in the future, you can fix it with minimal effort compared to erasing the images where you would have to start over from scratch if you erased too much. Unfortunately combining images is the only way to create that shot now. ; I don't know about DL, but at MK when they were showing the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks before Wishes was created, the lighting on the statue stayed on for the whole show, making that image possible in one shot. ; I got lucky and pulled it off back when I was still shooting film: I tried again during Wishes and was surprised to find out that the statue lights turned off. ; I may try the image stacking method again on my next trip.
I'm sure you're being rhetorical but for those who may not know: Click the share tab on the left side and a slider will pop out.
Very cool - nice to merge those three elements together. ; Kudos to Michael for nailing it on film too! I also agree with what Michael said - merging shots like that is even better, and comes together usually more smoothly with less flaws, when using layers and changing the blend modes. ; For example, with fireworks, you can drop the fireworks layer over the castle shot layer and choose 'lighten' - it will only pull through the sections of the fireworks frame that are brighter than the castle frame (meaning pretty much the fireworks themselves). ; No erasing needed, and fast. This took about 10 seconds - a shot of the moon in a black night sky, layered over the Mexico pavilion shot, blend set to lighten, no erasing and done:
I didn't think of using the blend modes for fireworks, but that would work nicely. ; Ill keep that in mind when I try that shot again
i too would plus 1 this, if i only could figure out what all those choices mean when i click on the share button, i only wanted to praise it here
Thanks everyone. I use Corel Paint Shop Pro; which I understand is very similar to photoshop. ; I was intending to use the blending settings to merge the layers together, but I couldn't find it again fast enough and I decided to zoom in and feel out the pieces I wanted to erase into view. ; I used small short strokes at the edges - using frequent short strokes so I could control z errors without loosing progress. ; And I did some occasional smudging black at the edges. I like your picture too, Mike. ; I can see the advantage of the larger east coast castle. ; I don't think I could line up a shot with those proportions without faking it. ; And without those proportions, I don't think that angle of Partners to Castle would look as pleasing in a westcoast picture of fireworks. I have daytime pics of Partners with the Castle in the background in tighter than in this firework shot, and I think it works nicely. ; But I'm not so sure about a night time shot. It also seems your Partners shift greener, while ours shifts amber. ; Is that acurate, or was lighting different that night? Again thanks for all the encouragement. Will G
One thing I noticed, and it may be nitpicky, is that the Partners statue is a bit crooked. ; You might want to try to straighten it out a bit... ; but that is just a suggestion.
Walt looks a little off axis, but look at the pedestal; It's pretty square. ; It may be wide angle distortion. ; I think Walt's just leaning in a little to discuss something with his smaller partner Will G
Will, ; I'm not sure about the color shift. ; That was shot with daylight balanced film and then scanned. ; I may have over done the color correction When I scanned it.
Its funny how things become glaringly obvious once mentioned. ; I would have never noticed the slight tilt in Walt before. ; But now that it has been brought up, it was the first thing I saw when I went back to look at it. ; That being said, for me, that is not enough to detract from a great photo. (Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk)
