Fire! Fire! Fire!
 

Sounds like a fun job! As long as safety precautions are followed.

So does the client stage special fireworks displays just for the shoot? I imagine that would help so you don't have that standing cloud of smoke to shoot through.

If you have time, give us a brief rundown of "a day in the office."

T.J.

fireworks video
 

OK I'll jump in.

"The trails are not giving off enough light to be picked up by the CCD. Open the aperature, lower the shutter speed, and shut off image stabilization"

Good advice but I have noticed that when the aperature is opened too far (maybe what you need to see the trails) the colors look way to saturated and take on a white look - at least on one of my cameras. There has to be a happy medium that will allow good color on the bright stuff but will also show the trails.

Time to experiment with what Jesse has suggested. Let us know how it works as you'll be the expert when you're done.

Terry

P.S. I hope you are in manual iris control as the AGC can mess you up a lot in this situation.

I only shot some stuff with my XL1S a couple of years back at
the year change and I had everything on full manual. Looked
pretty good, although it was hard to know in that situation
where the next "explosions" where going to be. All sort of auto
circuits (like auto focus) could prevent you from seeing such an
effect. Perhaps you should tell us in which settings you where
shooting?

Best XL2 Settings for Fireworks Video?
 

I'm a brand new XL2 owner and I curious as to what would be the best way to configure my camera in order to film my family's July 4th fireworks. The camera will be pearched about 80 feet away on a rooftop. What's the best way to capture this sort of thing at night?

There is no one answer to this question, remember your exposure is determined by the distance from the light source. So how far away from the source will determine your exposure.
I have found slower shutter speeds give better saturated colors so I would start at 1/24 - 1/30 @ F:11 and see where you are at. You may even need to add an ND filter to get those nice bright colors.

Bill

I shot our fireworks last year with my XL2. I used the 16X manual with a .7 wide angle adapter.

Set the camera in full manual mode. You don't need to add gain, the fireworks will be plenty bright.

Set focus to manual and on infinity. Stay full wide during the display.

I don't recommend F11 as Bill does because that's going to bring in some undesirable characteristics of the lens. I know Bill is recommending this to get you deeper DOF which you will need cause the fireworks aren't all going to be at the same distance from you. But F11 is outside the sweet spot of the lens and if you do use a wide angle adapter, your DOF should be plenty deep at full wide.

My recommendation is to stay at around f4 or f5.6 and set knee to low and blacks to stretch in the presets menu.

If you don't have a wide angle adapter, 80 feet away is going to be too close for a nice wide view of the show. Try to get further away if possible.

Also, try to stay upwind of the show so that falling debris doesn't land on the camera.

Have fun and be safe!

-gb-

If possible, have someone send up a test fire so you can lock the camera on the correct settings before the main show starts.

Greg,

Good point I'll use some ND and open up abit and see what happens this year.
The ones I shoot are shot from three barges and they are 200 to 300 yards apart. I'll try focusing between the first and second barge and see what happens.

Bill

VX-2100 and Fireworks
 

I am looking for some advice from the VX/PD veterans. I purchased a VX-2100 about 6 months ago and I am trying to learn how to get the most out of it. It has produced some stunning footage in both manual and auto modes until I tried to capture some of the holiday fireworks shows, over the weekend. The show was about 14 minutes long and I started with everything in auto, just to see what would happen, for the first couple of minutes. Through the rest of the show, I played with some of the program modes and full manual settings. I never really got the sharp color rich images that I was looking for. I'm not sure how to accurately manual focus the short burst of fireworks. Best focus seemed to be at, or near infinity. I know every situation is different, but what would be a "typical" setup for this type shot? (Aperature, Shutter, White Balanace) I did notice that when in auto, there was lots of gain. I was able to go the other direction and close down the aperature and that did help some.
Thanks

Fireworks look best shot with a very static camer - of that I'm positive. Fireworks are also very bright, so you'll probably need zero gain and something like f/4. Experiment. Infinity focus is good, as is daylight white balance. AGC for the audio is probably best to avoid overoad on the biggest bangs.

I always do a two camera shoot. Both cameras run continuously for sync on the timeline, and the roving cam captures the skyward turned faces oohing and ahring at the night sky. Four pictures in the frame on the edit (with the faces at the bottom) works really well.

tom.

AGC on VX2100
 

A lot of people say they use the AGC for audio to avoid overloading the sound. I find that the sound runs very hot. Is this normal? When adjusting levels manually, what mark do you aim for on the display?

Ezra

peaks of approximately -12dB is usual, but the dynamic range of a firewords show is hard to predict. You don't want the loudest boom to exceed 0 dB.

The AGC clamps rather than control gain as far as I can figure out. That's why I set the second channel in manual and the level control at about 1/3rd. That way, when the auto channel peaks, the manual channel is there as a backup and I don't have to monitor the sound all the time (when I'm a one-person band).

Apparently you're not talking about the VX2100, Mike?

Oooooh, I didn't look at the model. Dang, I hate it when I do that.

Filming Fireworks
 

Hi guys, I've just got a job to film in a few days time, where basically the main part of the event is a large fireworks display.

This is new territory for me and no time to practice, so, any one have any advice on technique and settings on the XL1s to best capture it.

Perhaps these threads might be of some assistance:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=22894
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=18898

The other thing I remember is that I had some drop outs that looked like it
may have been caused by loud explosions and big bangs. Then again, it was
freezingly cold when I shot something like that 5 years ago or something

Shooting Fire Works- Tips
 

Going to shoot fire works( night shoot) with two camera, canon XH A1 and
Sony Z1p. The A1 is my own camera and I am horing the Z1. Iwill be shooting in HDV mode. I am familiar with the shooting mode of the A1, eventhough I am not an expert in shooting such events. As for the Z1 we are using this camera for
the first time.
So what exposure mode with the A1 is to shoot fire work. I prefer with manual mode with shutter at 50 and iris I think should have to open fully as these cameras are performing poor in low light. I don't like to use any gain settings
because it generate so much noice in the black background. Any one tried any other mode. How about the Night Mode in the A1. I like advice from other
experienced users. Thanks

I am not sure if this will help you but take a look at a little how to from izzy.

http://img669.libsyn.com/img669/7a22...zzyvideo36.mp4

Thanks for the link. It is nice.

How to shoot fireworks
 

1.) Lay on ground
2.) Light fuse
3.) Get away!

LOL nice one

What settings for Fireworks shoot
 

Hello,

I am wondering what you recommend for settings when recording firework displays?

Are there any presets to use?

I have shoot next week with the A1 and its hard to really do testings when the show is only a one time gig. This is also the first show in the area so will really not be able to test it but still was asked to shoot it.

Any help or ideas would be appreciated..

Thanks

Fort Vancouver has an excellent display that I'm going to shoot with my new XH A1 this year. I've only ever done still fireworks photos, so I'll be learning along with you come July 4th.

Right now my plan is -3db, 30F, noise reduction on, and crush the blacks. Hopefully that will make the sky inky black.

I am planning to play with shutter speed on July 4th to see if I can get any comet-looking trails.

I had an opportuntity to shoot a really impressive fireworks show on June 30th. (Sorry, no downloads yet. Maybe I'll put something up in a week or two.)

I used f/1.6, 1/30, -3 Db, NR1 low, press blacks, and manual focus. I tried 1/15 and lower for a few shots, but I didn't like them. Noise was uncharacteristically high, even for -3 Db, so I couldn't try turning off the NR. The cause for this was that it was hot out, and I was running the camera for two and half hours, so the sensor got too hot. The worst side effect was a vertical low-contrast line that constantly strobed from right to left. Next time I need to have a fresh, cold camera on standby for high-noise situations.

Aside from the noise reduction and vertical strobing line, the footage was beautiful. It was like being there. The angle was wide enough to capture even the biggest fireworks.

How well does the XH A1 shoot fireworks?
 

I'm still living in the SD world with my VX2000 but looking to move to HD. One of my customers is a fireworks company, so I'd like to know if the fireworks footage will be at least as good I had with the VX2000. When I purchased that camera, I A/B'd it with the XL1 to find the best for fireworks. The VX2000 was the winner hands down.

Now I'm looking to move up to HD, and the XH A1 looks to be the best choice for general purpose shooting. Does anybody know how well it does shooting fireworks?

It does very well. Here's a related thread about settings. I shot some XH A1 fireworks footage this year. It appears at the end of this "Celebration of Freedom" video:

720p30 h264 3Mbps, 100 MB

720p30 Quicktime HD, 200 MB

See also this Fireworks sample videos thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=98179

Thanks.

I had looked at the sample videos and at some other footage I found on the web, but they were all shot from too far away for me to really see what I was looking for. This Celebration of Freedom video is perfect. It shows good detail in the breaks that I was looking for.

Looks like I'll be joining the club soon.

These started going off while we were eating dinner. and yes, I actually bring the camera and tripod with me to dinner.

http://www.mediafire.com/?5m2kmcy1kjb

HDV to SD to MPG2

Hi all
 

I am using Panasonic NV-GS 180 3CCD camcorder and i planning to shoot fireworks tonight. I shoot my town sky from my house roof. That camcorder got 37mm lens and i dont have wideangle yet so Is the 16:9 and manual setup good?

Regards, Kristjan.