Lights Camera Action ...

[dje]

Our fair city is currently celebrating spring with it's annual festival which includes a light show every night for a few weeks. I have never tried photographing this sort of thing but decided to give it a go last night. I used the following approach

manual focus (on one of the buildings)
large aperture (f/3.5) and increased ISO (400) to get as fast a shutter speed as possible (still slow though - around 1/2 sec) - the idea being to avoid too much blurring of the moving light beams
tripod
shot after shot after shot to try and get the best moments of the rapidly changing lights

I was reasonably happy with these two shots but I'll leave it up to you to decide - comments welcome.

Dave

[Donald]

I was reasonably happy with these two shots but I'll leave it up to you to decide - comments welcome

I think you should be very happy indeed. These are super (they've got to be viewed at the larger size in the lightbox).

They convey a great buzz of excitement and energy. Well done, Dave.

[MilT0s]

Spectacular show and captures Dave.

Consider selling them to the local tourist office! I am sure they will love them.

[Bobobird]

Spectacular show and captures Dave.
Consider selling them to the local tourist office! I am sure they will love them.

Agreed. Spectacular is the word.

[Karm Redland]

Great shots.

Karm

[DeepWater]

I concur - fantastic shots! I particularly like the bottom one because of the effect of lighting on the water from the boat and the buildings on the right. Did you use a different aperture for this shot?

[dje]

Thanks everybody for your comments. James the same aperture and shutter speed settings were used for both shots (f/3.5,0.5 sec).

Here's one more I processed this morning.

[dubaiphil]

Very very good, Dave

[dje]

Thanks Phil

[Mike Buckley]

Such an interesting, surreal effect! For me, the clouds are a little distracting. I wonder if the images would be even more dramatic if you took the entire sky to black.

[dje]

Such an interesting, surreal effect! For me, the clouds are a little distracting. I wonder if the images would be even more dramatic if you took the entire sky to black.

Interesting point Mike. I would have preferred a nice clear sky and I did play with the black level slider on the Levels adjustment to darken the sky and make the clouds much less visible. In the end I left it as shot but I might have another look at that.

Thanks for commenting.

Dave

[enaiman]

Superb pics Dave, hope to visit Brisbane sometime - have to keep an eye on the events there

[dje]

Superb pics Dave, hope to visit Brisbane sometime - have to keep an eye on the events there

Thanks Eugen. Yes it's all happening here !!