There are angels about – Foto Friday

During our vacation in Connecticut recently we have gotten into a tradition with our friends of lighting off fireworks and sparklers.  Minor fireworks have recently become legal in Connecticut and so they are still fresh and novel.  Unlike Tennessee, where you can buy enough at one time to rival displays put on by the Grucci family (and blow yourself up), the kind in Connecticut are wimpy. Sparklers, minor Roman candles, poppers.  Nothing like a rocket or even bottle rockets. So it was with much glee that I had my hoard of precious Tennessee illegal fireworks to bring up to our friends and really show off.

And I forgot them at home.

Grrrr…….

So we had to settle for sparklers.  But since I always take the lemons life throws at me and make lemonade, we did some Angel pictures with the sparklers.  It’s easy! 

• Set camera on tripod.  Oh yeah, forgot that at home too….  Used our friend’s fence post on their deck instead.
• IS0 400, f/4 or 5.6, 8 second exposure seemed to be about right.  It was long enough for the kids to draw a complete angel.
• Get sparkler lit, run into position, open shutter and let it go.
• Shoot lots and lots!

And here are some results.  I’m really happy with how they turned out:

The last was the best and my favorite!

Now what if you don’t have a camera with manual settings?  You can try the fireworks mode which should get you nice long exposure times.  You also might try the Tm or Time mode (if you have it) where you pick the exposure time and the camera picks the f/stop.  So go and try some today!   

Which one’s your favorite?

Other posts you will enjoy:

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