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| 2007-07-04 fireworks |
Now for what I learned. I really should spend some time reading up on basic photography theory, but here is what I've gathered from trial and error so far. Shutter speed is important for deciding how much action should be captured in an image. The slower the speed the more the image will blur. This part makes sense.
The part that confused me was the f/stop. The f/stop determines how much light will make it through the camera to sensor. The lower the number the more light would make it through. For the most part, I've been shooting images in lower light situations that require the lowest f/stop and as quick of a shutter as I can manage and still see the image. The confusing part was trying to understand why anyone would want to use the f/stop priority setting on my camera.
A Tedious Explanation of the f/stop by Matthew Cole has a solid write up of exactly what the f/stop is. I still don't know why you would want to use the f/stop as the priority, but at least now I know what it is.
All of this leads up to the part that I learned photographing fireworks. A 2 second exposure is juts about enough time to take the shot as soon as the firework explodes. To get a quick capture of what it looks like at any point in time the shutter speed can be moved to 1/2 or 1/5 second. To get a very interesting shot, push the shutter speed up to 4 or 6 seconds and turn the f/stop up to darken the image. This one takes a little guess work to line up the shot, but the result is an exposure that covers the entire life span of the firework.
Lesson Learned : What the f/stop is and how much nicer it is to take a long exposure on a tripod.
