Originally posted by tomshen
what happened? u handheld at ISO 3200 with German made lens cap on?
Hi
short summary of my story
1) Got distracted by last min dinner appointment with a female friend - so despite reaching there early with plenty of time to find a good spot, "wasted" half the time eating
next time i will get my priorities straight.....
2) Second big mistake - we have some friends who booked a nice room in Westin Stamford hotel (now the Swissotel - watever). Went up with them to the room and the view is indeed nice. They invited me to shoot from there as i wouldn't have to squeeze with all the people. I setup my tripod and everything and.........
in an incredible stupid move, i decided i wasn't close enough. I couldn't feel the sweat, couldn't potentially smell gunpowder, and felt too detached from all that will happen.
So in this brain damaged condition, i packed up my stuff again and decided to go to the Esplanade Bridge 30 mins from the start of the firework, leaving behind a nice air conditioned suite near the top of the world and a bunch of nice pple (including among them a couple of rather nice looking babes)
My friends decided to stay in the room, and they must be thinking "this weird guy with the camera is weirder than we thought"
They delayed my journey further by asking for group shots with the esplanade in the background...
3) Which left me with all of 30 mins. That isn't enough time to find a good spot. I had to fight crowds all the way from the hotel to the esplanade bridge, squeeze through this huge crowd, and then, had to settle for a less than ideal position, with no place to put my tripod! argh! After all that backbreaking effort of carring my full gear through the human traffic, i had to settle for a ledge which i climbed on, but had no place to put down my stuff.
So, i had to shoot handheld for the entire performance, carrying my heavy bag and tripod
Worse, i had to shoot with 800 negative film, and i don't think shooting fireworks with negative film is the best idea in the world! arrrgghhhhhh
After all that effort, i couldn't really think straight about my exposures. I set the camera to manual, and do my best to estimate the exposure required, for both the 1v and the M6.
I don't have a good feeling about my exposures. :|
(i realise i shoot with the manual mode much more often with the 1v now after getting so used to the m6 - and realised just how ineffective a reflected light meter is, even if it's evaluative!)
And i had to shoot with super low shutter speeds with the 70-200, and my tired hands just aren't as steady as i would like.
so in a nutshell that's why to get any usable frames out of that whole episode would be quite a miracle indeed.
And my friends didn't make me feel any better when they keep waxing lyrical quotes on how nice the view was from up there...........
well, i console myself that at least i was a part of the proceedings. i squeezed through sweaty bodies, had ashes flying all over me, ashes flying into my camera bag, smelt gunpowder from the fireworks, and witnessed a spectacular display up close and personal.
