Mammoth is a great small town and we like to do the 4th! We have your basic small town 4th of July parade which is really the largest squirt gun fight on the planet with the fire dept & forest service using their tankers to soak the crowd and the crowd in return using super soakers and water balloons. Great fun! In between we have horses and American flag, old hot rods, pirate ships and just great community fun. Then in the evening we convene at the lake for fireworks. It’s just a great show with the rocket’s percussion echoing off the granite walls of the Sierra so the sound effects are amazing!
And as always, I had my camera. At 9:15 when the first rockets went up, the clouds had cleared enough so you can see a slight glow on the horizon but not enough for our great umbrella of stars to be the background. And at first the wind was calm but near the end, it picked up and that changes the final image. As far as photographing them, I make it real simple because I’m there to enjoy the family and show. The D3x is mounted on a tripod, 24-120VR attached and zoomed to about 35mm. I have the MC-36 attached, lens on manual focus set to infinity, 8sec f/5.6. I watched the shells being launched and looking at their altitude, I click or not. Finishing is real simple in ACR, I shoot in Vivid and other then taking the Highlight & Light slider to the left in ACR, it’s a two click finishing. I have a new mounting system for the Moose Cam I was testing so I shot video of the entire show with the Coolpix S9100 (great camera!). The system worked perfectly but the LCD repeat of the show doesn’t do it justice. Hope your 4th was just as good for you!