What settings for Fireworks shoot

[Greg Boston]

I shot our fireworks last year with my XL2. I used the 16X manual with a .7 wide angle adapter.

Set the camera in full manual mode. You don't need to add gain, the fireworks will be plenty bright.

Set focus to manual and on infinity. Stay full wide during the display.

I don't recommend F11 as Bill does because that's going to bring in some undesirable characteristics of the lens. I know Bill is recommending this to get you deeper DOF which you will need cause the fireworks aren't all going to be at the same distance from you. But F11 is outside the sweet spot of the lens and if you do use a wide angle adapter, your DOF should be plenty deep at full wide.

My recommendation is to stay at around f4 or f5.6 and set knee to low and blacks to stretch in the presets menu.

If you don't have a wide angle adapter, 80 feet away is going to be too close for a nice wide view of the show. Try to get further away if possible.

Also, try to stay upwind of the show so that falling debris doesn't land on the camera.

Have fun and be safe!

-gb-

If possible, have someone send up a test fire so you can lock the camera on the correct settings before the main show starts.

[Bill Hamell]

Greg,

Good point I'll use some ND and open up abit and see what happens this year.
The ones I shoot are shot from three barges and they are 200 to 300 yards apart. I'll try focusing between the first and second barge and see what happens.

Bill

[Steve Evans]

I am looking for some advice from the VX/PD veterans. I purchased a VX-2100 about 6 months ago and I am trying to learn how to get the most out of it. It has produced some stunning footage in both manual and auto modes until I tried to capture some of the holiday fireworks shows, over the weekend. The show was about 14 minutes long and I started with everything in auto, just to see what would happen, for the first couple of minutes. Through the rest of the show, I played with some of the program modes and full manual settings. I never really got the sharp color rich images that I was looking for. I'm not sure how to accurately manual focus the short burst of fireworks. Best focus seemed to be at, or near infinity. I know every situation is different, but what would be a "typical" setup for this type shot? (Aperature, Shutter, White Balanace) I did notice that when in auto, there was lots of gain. I was able to go the other direction and close down the aperature and that did help some.
Thanks

[Tom Hardwick]

Fireworks look best shot with a very static camer - of that I'm positive. Fireworks are also very bright, so you'll probably need zero gain and something like f/4. Experiment. Infinity focus is good, as is daylight white balance. AGC for the audio is probably best to avoid overoad on the biggest bangs.

I always do a two camera shoot. Both cameras run continuously for sync on the timeline, and the roving cam captures the skyward turned faces oohing and ahring at the night sky. Four pictures in the frame on the edit (with the faces at the bottom) works really well.

tom.

[Ezra Hiller]

A lot of people say they use the AGC for audio to avoid overloading the sound. I find that the sound runs very hot. Is this normal? When adjusting levels manually, what mark do you aim for on the display?

Ezra

[David Ennis]

peaks of approximately -12dB is usual, but the dynamic range of a firewords show is hard to predict. You don't want the loudest boom to exceed 0 dB.

[Mike Rehmus]

The AGC clamps rather than control gain as far as I can figure out. That's why I set the second channel in manual and the level control at about 1/3rd. That way, when the auto channel peaks, the manual channel is there as a backup and I don't have to monitor the sound all the time (when I'm a one-person band).

[David Ennis]

Apparently you're not talking about the VX2100, Mike?

[Mike Rehmus]

Oooooh, I didn't look at the model. Dang, I hate it when I do that.

[Carl Barlow]

Hi guys, I've just got a job to film in a few days time, where basically the main part of the event is a large fireworks display.

This is new territory for me and no time to practice, so, any one have any advice on technique and settings on the XL1s to best capture it.

[Rob Lohman]

Perhaps these threads might be of some assistance:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=22894
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=18898

The other thing I remember is that I had some drop outs that looked like it
may have been caused by loud explosions and big bangs. Then again, it was
freezingly cold when I shot something like that 5 years ago or something

[Rajiv Attingal]

Going to shoot fire works( night shoot) with two camera, canon XH A1 and
Sony Z1p. The A1 is my own camera and I am horing the Z1. Iwill be shooting in HDV mode. I am familiar with the shooting mode of the A1, eventhough I am not an expert in shooting such events. As for the Z1 we are using this camera for
the first time.
So what exposure mode with the A1 is to shoot fire work. I prefer with manual mode with shutter at 50 and iris I think should have to open fully as these cameras are performing poor in low light. I don't like to use any gain settings
because it generate so much noice in the black background. Any one tried any other mode. How about the Night Mode in the A1. I like advice from other
experienced users. Thanks

[Michael Ferreira]

I am not sure if this will help you but take a look at a little how to from izzy.

http://img669.libsyn.com/img669/7a22...zzyvideo36.mp4

[Rajiv Attingal]

Thanks for the link. It is nice.

[Tom Roper]

1.) Lay on ground
2.) Light fuse
3.) Get away!