So I was out shooting fireworks recently and on one particular night with the Mrs in tow I set up my tripod and camera in a real hurry as she was bitching at me that I was not talking to her and our friends and spending too much time with my camera. Anyway, as my Wide angle is a Tonkina it has its minimum focus turning to the opposite of my walkabout 18 to 50 which is on my camera 90% of the time. Needless to say I was focussing at 30cm (the minimum) and not infinity like I should have been... DOH!!!!!!!
I set up the camera in Manual mode with my own preferences (1.3 seconds, f8-f16 and ISO 100 or 200) and turned screen turned off no to ruin other peoples experience and used the remote shutter to get some shots.
Got home.... loaded the picture onto my PC... instantly noticed my EPIC FAIL on the photos. Started to scroll though photos deleting them at will but slowly I realised that my outcomes was less of a fail than I had once though and I actually really liked the outcome.
Below are a few of my fails for your approval:
(http://www.thomaspointer.com/publicphotos/2012_11_05/IMG_1002.jpg)
(http://www.thomaspointer.com/publicphotos/2012_11_05/IMG_1004.jpg)
(http://www.thomaspointer.com/publicphotos/2012_11_05/IMG_1005.jpg)
(http://www.thomaspointer.com/publicphotos/2012_11_05/IMG_1020.jpg)
(http://www.thomaspointer.com/publicphotos/2012_11_05/IMG_1021.jpg)
(http://www.thomaspointer.com/publicphotos/2012_11_05/IMG_1066.jpg)
(http://www.thomaspointer.com/publicphotos/2012_11_05/IMG_1067.jpg)
(http://www.thomaspointer.com/publicphotos/2012_11_05/IMG_1085.jpg)
(http://www.thomaspointer.com/publicphotos/2012_11_05/IMG_1087.jpg)
These will not be sharp at full size due to the focus but I really like softness and it looks way better than previous photos which were in sharp focus when at 1024 but horrible at 100%. Not my best firework shots but very different!
I think it must be something to do with the way the light is refracted, these almost look like photos which have been rendered rather than shot.
Let me know what you think..
DZ
Those are great DZ. some real talent in there somewhere..
I like the softness too, if you could cut out some of the peripheral detail which emphasises that they're out of focus, you'd never know it wasn't intentional. :)
I might do that actually. It is going down as an experiment anyway rather than a complete fail.
I am still pretty peeved with myself for being a cocky bugga and not checking the settings, but the Mrs was getting pretty peeved as it took me a few mins to set the tripod up. Next time need to remember to turn the opposite way.
There is another display this weekend so I will try with the same settings apart from this time in focus and see if I can get any better results or if the softness is better.