Because of the ongoing pandemic the sale of fireworks in German was forbidden last year. So at least it no longer felt like being under attack around midnight when the new year began. To be clear: I have nothing against fireworks. If people want to (literally) burn their money to attract attention I am all for it. I rather spend my money on gear instead seing it going up in smoke. Also, I am busy enjoying myself and taking photos – so no time for fireworks.
My setup this time was a little bit different than last time I did this. I did not use a tripod, I wanted to try out hand-shooting this time. My new Z5 does have IBIS (in body image stabilisation) which means I can shoot up to 1/15s (or maybe even longer) without a tripod. Details:
- Camera: Nikon Z5
- Lens: Viltrox 24mm F1.8 (full frame prime lens)
- Camera setting on Manual
- Aperture: f2.8
- Shutter speed: 1/15s
- ISO800
- Focus: automatic (perhaps this was a mistake)
I used these settings for all photographs. Worked fine. As with 1/15s speed you have to be very lucky to get a good shot, I simply pressed down the button and shot as many pictures rapidly until the camera stopped (because the autofocus tricked me or the buffer was full).
In total I took around 500 photos – of which I selected the ones below. Most of the time I used Photoshop to combine 4-8 photographs (using the “align layers” and “blend layers” function).
