Yes, I gave the France team a missed, was getting a bit tired over getting stuck at traffic for ages just for 12 minutes of fireworks for 3 days in a week. Plus I had to go out early in the morning the following day so I decided to give the finale a miss.



Anyway, I found that I have reached a bottle neck for my fireworks shooting techniques. My first attempted ended up with many half-baked fireworks shots becaused I sticked too closely with the 2 second exposure rule. I didn't do the exposure right too partly because I'm too close to the fireworks (end up with too much smoke) and partly because that was my first fireworks attempt with a non point and shoot camera. (Had 2 previous attempts with my old P3).



As for the Singapore round, I had my Alpha running out of juice before slapping my H1 on the tripod in double quick time before screwing up the focus manually. I found many of my Alpha shots were slightly blurred due to handshake even though I had it on a tripod. Why? Because I left my hand on the camera at times after pressing the shutter so I could hit the shutter again.



The third time round, I made no mistakes like the first two tries and I end up with a lot more keepers. And luckily, the Team New Caledonia was much more exciting compared to Team Italy and Team Singapore.



Making less mistakes does not mean that there's no room for improvements. I heard from other photographers there that some use a black card to control exposure in bulb mode to make sure that they get the best possible shot. That way, they could control exposure precisely by moving the black cards. Since no one knows exactly how long does each shot in the fireworks last and what to expect next, this technique may be low in efficiency but high in effectiveness. Is it better than my random shoot and pray? No one knows. But I'd seen great H1 fireworks shots (which most likely used random shoot and pray since H1 does not offer bulb mode).



Another way to improve my shots slightly would be the use of a remote. It's a necessity for me to use bulb mode anyway. A remote would eliminate camera shake when pressing the shutter. But given that I'm on a budget, I have to make do with the tools that I can get my hands on without jeopardising my financial plans. (I'm pretty much done with spending for the year unless I get a really big red packet from bonus).



Of course, the next big thing is to get a good location. Like setting up at Sheare's bridge (and risk getting lung cancer) or trekking to the far edges of Marina East or be super early to get vantage points that includes the Merlion. Given the Kiasuism culture here, I would settle for the 2nd best locations anytime. Unless I get paid to do so.

All shots seen here were taken with the Sony Alpha 100.

Bulb mode = Total control on when the shutter opens and closes for your camera

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