I’d been to the Malaysia International Fireworks Competition in year 2007, and didn’t manage to take any photographs because I have not well prepared.
This time I know what to do and get myself serious. I bought the remote release from Shashinki and it cost me RM59.50; yet it took less than 2 days delivery.
It was China team’s performance on Saturday (16 Aug 2008). Personally we recognized China was the main distributor of fireworks and supply to most countries in the world. However, I assume they will perform to the extreme and gave the best setup for this year’s competition.
We have our dinner at my mother-in-law’s house (Sri Kembangan). From her house it took less than 15 minutes to reach Perdana Lake View, Cyberjaya. By the time we reached the lake side around 9pm, there were many cars on the road side. And this were only 60% of the crowd, believe there’ll be more crowd later.
Tripod was ready. Remote release was ready. Everything was ready but we just wasted our time waiting. 
After an hour, finally first fire blazed into the dark sky. Once I took the first 5 shots (my aperture at F18 with 5-8 sec), quickly preview them and seem like all shots didn’t turn out right. Although manual mode and to experiment with shooting in low light at longer exposures. It’s not easy as I though.
On the other hand, I just keep changing the aperture and speed.. once it was F15…then F13; still not perfect, so decided to make it F10 with 2-3 sec. Yes, finally I got it.
Find out more photographs from Creadaq.com
Total time of Chinese’s performance was around 25-30 minutes. It was amazing. But another nightmare was the massive jam when heading back home.
Overall, I was happy about my remote release, it’s a MUST when you are taking fireworks photography. The only way of taking shots without touching your camera is to use remote release and to set your own timer. This can work but you really need to be able to anticipate shots well.
To know more about Fireworks photography, check out this from digital photography school.
