Pretty green flame Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 Good day Well when i film my homemade stuff or commercial displays i'm not always happy with the results. I have a MiniDV camera with 600.000pixles resloution som this is pretty much basic. Basicly i'm looking for tips on how to improve the quality of my movies. Please help with tips, suggestions....or anything else that might have anything to do with filming fireworks. Thanks
weknowpyro Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 I always film my stuff. Best tip for making the movies look good after you have filmed it, is to edit it properly to get rid of that annoying part of a person running up and down trying to light the fuse. Another tip is not to watch the firework on the screen but to watch it with your eyes and when you see the firework raise up just automatically move you hand with your eyes.If filming stationary fireworks i.e. fountains. Don't get someone to hold the camera place it on a table and make sure that its to close so you don't miss the firework. Then you will have alot better video afterwards.Another two tips- Take off the neck strap for the camera this can be restricting and can also clank against the side of the camera producing noise on your video and my last tip which i always make sure i remeber is- Never talk in the background of your videos!
Pretty green flame Posted October 17, 2006 Author Posted October 17, 2006 thanks for the tips. Does anyone have any regarding white ballance and exposure, what's the optimal setting?
cplmac Posted October 18, 2006 Posted October 18, 2006 Make sure autofocus is turned off, and that your camera is focused to infinity. As for white balance, let me try to explain because it is different for every camera. The white balance affects the color temperature more or less. So if you increase the value of the white balance, it will emphasize the red more and lessen the blue and green, and vice versa. So if your camera's sensor naturally picks up heavy on the red and light on the green you might want to turn down the white balance, if your camera is heavy on the green and blue and light on the red bump it up. Also, it is good to set your iris to a lower value which enlarges the opening through your lense to your camera's sensor. which allows more light to get through, important when filming at night. Trial and error are key, good luck!
optimus Posted October 18, 2006 Posted October 18, 2006 Make sure autofocus is turned off, and that your camera is focused to infinity. Also, it is good to set your iris to a lower value which enlarges the opening through your lense to your camera's sensor. which allows more light to get through, important when filming at night. Trial and error are key, good luck! Actually, while you're correct that autofocus should be turned off (to stop the fireworks confusing the AF mechanism and 'searching), infinity isn't always the best focal point. It's best to autofocus on the firework, then lock the focus by switching it to manual, unless, of course, you're filming a display which is a long distance from you, when the infinity focal point can be used. Tungsten white balance works well for fireworks if it is available. Also, increasing the F-stop (enlarging the opening) isn't such a good idea when you consider that the light you're actually trying to capture is extremly bright. You're not trying to capture the ambient light, but the light from the stars/sparks. Stopping down will produce better, more saturated colours, and will reduce the problem of the colours washing out to white. Another tip - make sure there is no black space below the firework. There's nothing worse than cutting the top off the firework and retaining half a screen of black.
cplmac Posted October 19, 2006 Posted October 19, 2006 I'm afraid I have to disagree with you Optimus. The colors are not the hard part to record it's the nice orange and gold embers of willows and brocades. They don't show up very easily on film, and enlarging that opening will help. Oversaturating the color is not very likely unless there are some truly amazing colors going up, standard RWBG are not gonna oversaturate. And if you are close enough to a firework that focus to infinity won't work, you better drop the camera and run. I'm going to have to double check our camera, but I think our focus to infinity kicks in at 20 meters. Also, if you have the option turn off digital zoom.
optimus Posted October 19, 2006 Posted October 19, 2006 Feel free to dissagree, but I'm pretty sure I know a little more than you on this particular subject. I'm a professional photographer, and have done various assignments photographing fireworks for display companies. Did you know that the mechanical point of infinity changes in different weather conditions? If it's cold, the point will be different to when it's warm, and seeing as fireworks are displayed outdoors in varying weather, it's a good idea to autofocus on the first burst. This will give you perfect focus, while manually selecting infinity will not under various conditions... The infinity point will also change with different camera/lens combinations, and while yours may 'kick in' at 20m, others may not. Also, being less than 20m away from many different kinds of fireworks is not dangerous, so there's no need to run! As you over-expose colour stars, they become more and more white, NOT more and more saturated! Colours ARE easily blown out, and the only way of oversaturating would be to under-expose, not over-expose! While it's almost impossible to re-saturate blown highlights, it is fairly easy to bring up shadow detail. I should state that I'm reffering to digital photography here. If you wanted to expose metal dust on film, you're right, and a larger apature should be used (but the OP is reffering to digital videography). This will, of course, over-expose any metal-fuelled stars, which is simply the price you have to pay. There's not enough dynamic range with either film of digital photography to properly expose both Lampblack/Iron sparks, and Mg-fuelled flare stars in the same exposure.
psymon Posted October 19, 2006 Posted October 19, 2006 Opening the apature until its quite large is not such a good idea. yes you will be able to film, or photograph in lower light conditions but you will not get much depth of field. So unless you are capturing one firework everything else will be out of focus if thats where the focussing point is set to. Better to make the apature set somewhere in the middle. then you get a decent depth of field. Oh and also capturing something really bright like a magnesium fountain on the bulb setting over and over again has a possibility of damaging the CMOS or CCD of your digital camera (watch out people who film or photograph people welding or who takes pics of the sun). Of course if you are using film it does not matter.
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