This is not HDR tonemapping. Although I did, reprocess the original twice to brighten the foreground, it could have been done with shadows/highlights of Fill Light in Lightroom. Taken from my friend's apartment in Potrero Hill.
[Jan. 5th, 2011 07:46:25 PM]
I used my 70-200 2.8 at 125 mm. This helped compress the foreground and background. I also cropped about a 1/5 of the image out to exaggerate the compression even more. If I had to guess I would say this is what 175 mm would have looked like. I would have shot at that length but the fireworks were sometimes going off higher in the sky and and would get cut off. I forgot the cord for my wireless remote shutter so I was taking each image on a tripod and using the a 2 second timer to get rid of camera shake from actuating the shutter. I am not sure if I did this on this shot, but on many of them I would hold my hand in front of the lens when the the large burst would go off and only try and get the trails. This would help with blown highlights. White balance is set to 2400 K.
Post challenge: Thanks everyone for the comments and votes. It has been a long time since I ribboned, I was unsure if I would ribbon again. :)
Statistics
Place: 2 out of 69 Avg (all users): 7.4635 Avg (commenters): 8.2500 Avg (participants): 6.9211 Avg (non-participants): 7.5692 Views since voting: 7271 Views during voting: 701 Votes: 233 Comments: 46 Favorites: 7 (view)
Had I voted in this challenge, I would've given this a 10 and rated it my favorite submission. I especially like the idea/trick of covering the lens for the initial burst... thanks for the tip! I will try it next time I shoot fireworks.
Big congrats on this stunning shot, and on the ribbon. The processing is very effective and creative. The foreground is more interesting than the fireworks, but they make a spectacular background.
What really impressed me about this is that I didn't immediately recognize it as SF. I think the "anonymity" adds to its quality as "art" as compared to "documentary photo" -- not that there's anything wrong with that ...
Nice tip about using a long exposure but covering the lens during the burst -- I will try that next time.
I'm always happy when a team mate ribbons and am double happy that we ribboned in the same challenge. Great shot, Joe. I know what you mean about trying to keep the display in the frame...had to adjust a couple of times. Big congrats on your red!
THIS IS AWESOME! I didn't vote in this challenge cause the images I got when I first started looking through them just didn't do anything for me and when I vote I like to vote 100%. I wish I had hung in for a few more shots, maybe I would have seen this, then I woulda been hooked.
WONDERFUL WORK!
Welcome to the Year 2011
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