Fireworks Critique Request

[nkartikeyan]

Good Day Fellow CSers,

1. in what area is critique to be sought?

I was hoping to hear some advice on how to handle the post processing and on the exposure.

I like the fireworks captured, but I was wondering if I should attempt to remove the smoke around the fireworks burst? Should I attempt to burn the background sky to make it darker to improve the contrast?

I'm looking for ways to make the image pop out more. I did a quick search on the internet, some mentioned that I could try playing with Tone Curves Darks Slider (I'm using ACR by the way).
I tried doing that, but it changed the overall appearance of the scene making it darker. Playing with the shadows managed to compensate it back.

I tried using a mask and a layer and increasing the brightness of the fireworks, but that proved to be too difficult with the smoke in the area. Or maybe I should burn the background. Or just leave it alone and hope for better conditions/wind direction the next time (perhaps its unavoidable?)

2. what one hopes to achieve with the piece of work?

I was trying to capture a clean fireworks shot with a simple view of the skyline in the background.
I wanted to include the MBS towers and the Garden domes to try a different composition, as most images are captured from the marina bay area.


3. under what circumstance is the picture taken? (physical conditions/emotions)

The image was shot with a focal length of 50 mm, an aperture of f/8 and a shutter speed of 1.5 seconds. It was slightly hazy, which explains the slight hazy look in the image.


4. what the critique seeker personally thinks of the picture

Personally, I like this image as the fireworks reminds me of a bouquet of flowers. This might be one of the more interesting images, I have shot. The rest of the fireworks shots seemed way too boring / not special.
I also love the fact of the reflections of the fireworks on the MBFC buildings on the left and on the water. In hindsight, I should have tilted my camera lower to capture more of the reflections on the water.


Thank you for your time.

 

[Turbonetics]

what's the ISO?

 

[nkartikeyan]

what's the ISO?

ISO was 200 (base) on a D300 with 24-70 f/2.8.

Image was cropped to approximately a 16:9 ratio (from original image) with additional cropping at the top of the frame to achieve tighter framing.

 

[thoongeng]

I think you did quite well in the sense that the fireworks is not overly blown

You could try increasing overall exposure so the buildings are a bit brighter, increasing contrast/clarity so not so 'hazy' looking, and recovering a bit more highlights, and depending on your preference tweak saturation/vibrance

As for the smoke only the first few fireworks will have not much smoke, subsequently it will be quite inevitable (at least in my limited experience), unless the wind is really big to move them out of your frame quickly... Guess only way is to clone/mask them out manually, or blend the fireworks into another clean shot

Thanks for sharing, and do try more in the next few Saturdays

 

[nkartikeyan]

I think you did quite well in the sense that the fireworks is not overly blown

You could try increasing overall exposure so the buildings are a bit brighter, increasing contrast/clarity so not so 'hazy' looking, and recovering a bit more highlights, and depending on your preference tweak saturation/vibrance

As for the smoke only the first few fireworks will have not much smoke, subsequently it will be quite inevitable (at least in my limited experience), unless the wind is really big to move them out of your frame quickly... Guess only way is to clone/mask them out manually, or blend the fireworks into another clean shot

Thanks for sharing, and do try more in the next few Saturdays

@thoongeng Thanks for your comments. Yup, I think I'll take your advice to try blending the fireworks with another clean shot. I believe that trying to increase the exposure with the current RAW file would introduce more noise in the image, something I would like to avoid.

I tried B&W processing on another image, that would work best for single color fireworks. I think that color processing would work well with any fireworks shots with more than one color burst.

Blending and cloning is a skill that I have yet to master,its quite hard to match the contrast of the backdrop with the brightness caused by the fireworks.

The haze seems to be clearing up the PSI readouts are much lower than last Saturday. 6 More Saturdays to go, time to try out different perspectives and techniques.

 

[Shen siung]

Good Day Fellow CSers,

1. in what area is critique to be sought?

I was hoping to hear some advice on how to handle the post processing and on the exposure.

I like the fireworks captured, but I was wondering if I should attempt to remove the smoke around the fireworks burst? Should I attempt to burn the background sky to make it darker to improve the contrast?

I'm looking for ways to make the image pop out more. I did a quick search on the internet, some mentioned that I could try playing with Tone Curves Darks Slider (I'm using ACR by the way).
I tried doing that, but it changed the overall appearance of the scene making it darker. Playing with the shadows managed to compensate it back.

I tried using a mask and a layer and increasing the brightness of the fireworks, but that proved to be too difficult with the smoke in the area. Or maybe I should burn the background. Or just leave it alone and hope for better conditions/wind direction the next time (perhaps its unavoidable?)

In my opinion, whether to (partially) remove the smoke depends on you - you want a more natural photo or you are ok with editing it
In my humble opinion, to make the image pop out more, you need to frame your shots to make the firework not so close to the edge of your frame. seems not balance to me

2. what one hopes to achieve with the piece of work?

I was trying to capture a clean fireworks shot with a simple view of the skyline in the background.
I wanted to include the MBS towers and the Garden domes to try a different composition, as most images are captured from the marina bay area.

As mentioned above, to me the fireworks was too close to the edge

3. under what circumstance is the picture taken? (physical conditions/emotions)

The image was shot with a focal length of 50 mm, an aperture of f/8 and a shutter speed of 1.5 seconds. It was slightly hazy, which explains the slight hazy look in the image.


4. what the critique seeker personally thinks of the picture

Personally, I like this image as the fireworks reminds me of a bouquet of flowers. This might be one of the more interesting images, I have shot. The rest of the fireworks shots seemed way too boring / not special.
I also love the fact of the reflections of the fireworks on the MBFC buildings on the left and on the water. In hindsight, I should have tilted my camera lower to capture more of the reflections on the water.


Thank you for your time.

As mentioned by TS it is a hazy day, perhaps it is better to get closer to the fireworks and shot during a hazy day.

 

[nkartikeyan]

In my opinion, whether to (partially) remove the smoke depends on you - you want a more natural photo or you are ok with editing it
In my humble opinion, to make the image pop out more, you need to frame your shots to make the firework not so close to the edge of your frame. seems not balance to me



As mentioned above, to me the fireworks was too close to the edge




As mentioned by TS it is a hazy day, perhaps it is better to get closer to the fireworks and shot during a hazy day.

@Shen Siung : Thank you for your comments. Yup, the unbalanced issue troubled me a bit as well. I didn't have much of a choice that day, and was a bit taken aback.
Still looking for better locations for compositions and will definitely keep your comments at heart.