Happy 4th! Photographing Fireworks

Here are a few pictures I took at the Denville Fireman's carnival fireworks a few nights ago:

Here's a shot of the Denville 4th of July fireworks:

Fireworks are a great photographic subject, but your digital camera is most likely not going to give you good results taking shots in "automatic" mode.   Here are a few things to consider:

1. The most interesting photographs of fireworks capture several seconds of the event - the quick exposure your camera will tend to take in automatic mode will just show a few illuminated dots in the sky.
2. Along with a long exposure you're going to want to have a small lens opening (f-stop) and low ISO setting (light sensitivity) so that the bright fireworks don't blow out the exposure.   If you were shooting with film I'd suggest starting with a lens opening of f-16, ISO 100 film and a 4-second exposure.   If your digital camera has a manual mode try setting f8 or f11 if available and a two or four second exposure time.   Look at each picture - if the fireworks are too bright go for a smaller f-stop if possible.   Try different exposure times, the ideal exposure time will give you a nice assortment of fireworks and enough light to see the surroundings clearly.
3.  You'll need to keep the camera as still as possible during these long exposures.   Tripods are great for this, but you can also get great results resting the camera on a table, fence or blanket.   I often use a pod camera support which is a lot less hassle than a tripod.
4.  Consider using a flash to illuminate the foreground.   In the pictures of the ferris wheel I had a powerful external flash slaved to the Fuji W-1's built-in flash.  These pictures would have been a lot less successful if the ferris wheel had been dark against the fireworks in the background.  You can take amazing pictures of people in front of fireworks if you can get them to stand still for a few seconds and use a flash.  The flash won't have any impact on the distant fireworks, so you can combine a long exposure of fireworks with a typical flash picture of your friends.

One thing that digital cameras let you do is get immediate feedback on your pictures and adjust accordingly.   This is something film photographers can only dream of.

Is 3D imaging an exciting new technology?

With the wide release of 3D movies such as "Avatar" and "Shrek" and the availability of 3D televisions it's clear that the interest in 3D imaging is growing exponentially. Is 3D imaging an exciting new technology, part of the recent digital revolution? Actually the knowledge of 3D imaging techniques  predates photography, and many of the first 19th century photographs were 3D images taken with stereo cameras!

The most popular format for 3D photography in the late 1800s and early 1900s was the Stereocard.   These black and white images were contact prints, often from 7 inch wide glass negatives.  Antique stereocards in good condition are still astonishingly sharp and detailed, easily the match of any modern digital printing technology.


n 1838 Professor Charles Wheatstone established that humans perceive depth when the brain combines two slightly different images.  Each eye sees the world from a slightly different vantage point.; At almost the same time Fox Talbot invented the first photographic processes. To prove his theory, Wheatstone invented an instrument he called the stereoscope to view paired images. Within fifty years stereo photography grew to become one of the most popular forms of entertainment, becoming as widespread as TV is today. In the 1890’s nearly every prosperous home owned a stereoscope with a large assortment of stereocards of distant places and famous people.  This was the home entertainment center of the day.   Card salesmen traveled from door to door and even offered stereo photography services and custom cards.

A quick ebay search on the term "stereocard" will give some sense of the wealth of photographic material that was made available in this format.







Examples of vintage stereocards (actual size 7 inches wide).  The second card was hand-colored.
 

A classic 3D film camera: The Rolleidoscop

On the right is a series of pictures of what I consider to be one of the finest cameras ever made, the Rolleidoscop.   Rolleidoscops were manufactured from 1927 to 1940 by Franke and Heidke of Braunschweig, Germany, who later created the Rolleiflex TLR. Rolleidoscops are designed to use 120 roll-film, also referred to as Medium Format.

The two outer lenses produce two images on a segment of roll film. The middle lens is a finder (i.e. it lets you see what you're shooting) and is viewed from above through a mirror)


Medium format film and processing is still available, although they are becoming harder to find. Rolleidoscops are still in use by contemporary stereo photographers.

Q: Why would anyone want to use an ancient worn-out camera like this for anything other than a prop or display piece? 

A: No modern digital imaging system available for less than $25,000.00 can capture the detail and resolution that the Rolleidoscop's 3-element Tessar lenses can produce on 2 1/2" film.

Beyond that there is no digital image reproduction system capable of delivering the realism and detail of a 3D medium format slide when viewed in a stereo slide viewer.

Am I saying that a camera manufactured 80 years ago produces results superior to all those high-tech digital wonder-cameras currently being imported from Japan and China?

YES!

A few more 3D images from the Mermaid Parade.

 More information about the annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade can be found here:

Mermaids!

I still haven't gotten back the slides I took at the parade with my Chinese TL-120 medium format film camera.   The TL-120 is currently being manufactured in China by a company called "3D World".  It's the SUV of cameras and always attracts attention when I use it.  I use a double slide viewer to view the incredible slides I get from this camera.   Medium format film has over twice as much image area as 35mm film, and thus captures far more detail than any consumer digital camera. 

  Unfortunately there is no way to convey the incredible resolution of these slides on-line.   If I scan them they are just another digital image.   For on-line sharing a digital camera such as Fuji W-1 excells.  Here are a few more Fuji W-1 digital images from this past Saturday's Mermaid Parade:

A look at the Fuji W1 camera

The Fuji W1 is the first commercially available digital 3D camera. Prior to the release of the W1 photographers wanting to take stereoscopic digital images had to build rigs with two cameras linked together and synchronized like this one:



While these sorts of twin rigs can work well they can be difficult to use. Here's the W1:

My 3D photos of the Coney Island Mermaid Parade

No photographer in their right mind would miss a chance to attend the Coney Island Mermaid Parade.  A thriving  tradition since 1983, the Mermaid Parade is  the biggest and most insane art parade in the world.

Every year on the first Saturday of the summer the legendary Mermaids of Coney Island emerge from the sea for just one day and then march as a group to the beach, where the summer swimming season begins as ribbons are cut.

This year I was armed with my trusty Fuji W-1 digital 3D camera, and thanks to the groundbreaking multi-image synthesis technology of Start3D.com I can present here a series of 3D images of this amazing event.

Some old time 3D images

Here are a few classic stereoviews adapted to the new animated "Piku-Piku" format.   All classic 3D images, and indeed most contemporary 3D images, consist of a left-right pair.   For the "Piku-Piku" an additional 10 intermediate images are synthesized between the left and right originals.  This makes it possible to create lenticular prints (like the 3D baseball cards you might have seen) which aren't possible with only two images. The back and forth animation is one way to present a 3D image on a flat computer screen.

Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis:

19th Century Japan - this is a black and white image that was hand colored:

A Street Market in Cork, Ireland: