Camera Labs

It was Diwali here in India -- Its called the festival of lights.. Tried to capture few shots of the firecrackers, this is the first time i am trying to do that after getting hands on few tutorials on the internet.
No tripod, got a place to keep the camera still and wait for the firework to be in its range

you never know where the next one is going to be... denitely need a cable release for it, but no money to get that as of now so its just still hands..

both the images were taken with long exposure with the camera in shutter priority, around 8 seconds. I am not able to find the settings to bulb mode in my nikon need to read the mannual.

here goes the images

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Nikon D40
Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm
Nikkor AF-S 55-200mm

http://www.sauravsen.co.nr

Great shots! Looks like you've learnt a lot from this place after looking at a few of your posts lately.

I like number 1 most just purely because of the composition and the faint blue backlighting. Number 2 is ok, but maybe would have been better getting the explosion slightly off center like the first.

Great stuff though, you'll always keep learning!

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Phil Diggle - Freelance Graphics Designer, Full Time University Student and Novice Photographer!

Camera Kit - Sony A200K 18-70 DT | Minolta 70-210 AF 'Beercan' | Sony 50mm f/1.8 | Jessops Flash Gun

http://www.phildiggle.co.uk | Flickr Photo Portfolio - Working Progress

Nice shot,
Great encouragement phil

Thankyou for the suggestions and the encouragement.. people like me who had no clue of apertures and exposures.. can now try their hand on "BULB" mode (though i have still not found the setting on my D40) ..

So thanks again to the great forum of cameralabs and all the helpful comments put in.. i am still learning and trying to compose better.

Regards
Saurav

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Nikon D40
Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm
Nikkor AF-S 55-200mm

http://www.sauravsen.co.nr

Look at what one minute of photoshopping did to your second image:

Yep and thus the photo now looks more balanced...

I worked with the same method, but i instead i took repetitive shots from the same camera position and stacked my images and masked out the areas that i wanted and ended up with this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexanderb ... 941944301/

i m not happy at all with that, but it goes to show that it can be done, in that photo each "fire work splash" comes from a single shot! But there is just too much negative space in the image, which is pretty much area without interest!

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Hi Ernie, Alex168, what should be basics of good composition, i was mainly focussing on getting crisp pictures of the fireworks when they explode.

Are there any basics of good composition or its just plain creativity.

As phil described the first shot.. i was again focussing for the firework this time trying to fill it in the viewfinded by zooming in.. the tree gives a good composition here..

So would like to know is there any basics of good photo compostion, if there is a good tutorial on it, kindly let me know.

Regards

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Nikon D40
Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm
Nikkor AF-S 55-200mm

http://www.sauravsen.co.nr

The most basic rule to composition is Rule of Thirds. This is where you take a frame for what you want to take a picture of and devise a grid of 3 high and 3 deep. Some camera's have this grid built into them either through Viewfinder or LCD Display.

It allows you to imagine where things will be placed in the picture. Most commonly, items look better off-center.

Something which is hard to explain but easy to understand once you see a few diagrams. I believe there's a few topics on this forum about Rule of Thirds and there are thousands of articles on the internet if you do a search on Google for rule of thirds.

Hope that helps

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Phil Diggle - Freelance Graphics Designer, Full Time University Student and Novice Photographer!

Camera Kit - Sony A200K 18-70 DT | Minolta 70-210 AF 'Beercan' | Sony 50mm f/1.8 | Jessops Flash Gun

http://www.phildiggle.co.uk | Flickr Photo Portfolio - Working Progress

Thanks phil,

yes i have read topics about rule of thirds, i use that when the objects are static, for moving objects or action subjects does that hold true.

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Nikon D40
Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm
Nikkor AF-S 55-200mm

http://www.sauravsen.co.nr

Ideally, yes. However, in practice it can be quite hard. It's something that comes with experience I feel.

For example, motorsport. Panning is great but sometimes hard to judge where the subject is in the frame. So usually for that, it's better to fill the frame with the subject as long as the panning technique is sound.

Obviously, sometimes you can miss using Rule of Thirds by simplying forgetting. I know I do. So I usually tend to crop or process the image to make it conform to rule of thirds or make it look better.

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Phil Diggle - Freelance Graphics Designer, Full Time University Student and Novice Photographer!

Camera Kit - Sony A200K 18-70 DT | Minolta 70-210 AF 'Beercan' | Sony 50mm f/1.8 | Jessops Flash Gun

http://www.phildiggle.co.uk | Flickr Photo Portfolio - Working Progress

Thanks Phil,

i will keep these tips in mind.

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Nikon D40
Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm
Nikkor AF-S 55-200mm

http://www.sauravsen.co.nr

Nice one keep it up!

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Soon.....

Got the answer to my question.. for composition, link posted on one of my another thread by Adi.

http://www.amateursnapper.com/photograp ... tion-rules

_________________
Nikon D40
Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm
Nikkor AF-S 55-200mm

http://www.sauravsen.co.nr