Montreal In Pictures

September 15 2012

Although I covered the Tall Ship festival in yesterday’s blog, I had wanted to get some shots of the ships lit up at night and with there being fireworks tonight, it seemed like tonight would be the best time.

I had planned to get there for sunset and catch the magic hour, but I was a bit late and it was already dark by the time I got to the old port. I wasn’t sure of where the fireworks were actually going to be set off and ended up shooting from the King Edward Quay but would probably have been better staying on the Promenade du Vieux Port – something to remember for next year.

The other key thing to bear in mind is that they turn the illumination off on the ships during the firework display. For the first 2 shots below (actually taken at the end of the display) I was able to take a shot after the fireworks finished and the lights were turned back on and then mask the lit ships with the firework shots. Unfortunately I had moved around trying to find better views and these were pretty much the only ones I could use the mask on.

Montreal Tall Ship Festival Fireworks
ISO 100 – 34mm – f16 – 6.5 secs

Montreal Tall Ship Festival Firework display
ISO 100 – 34mm – f16 – 7.2 secs

Montreal Tall Ship Festival Firework display
ISO 100 – 24mm – f16 – 7.4 secs

Montreal Tall Ship Festival Firework display
ISO 100 – 24mm – f16 – 5.6 secs

Montreal Tall Ship Festival Firework display
ISO 100 – 24mm – f16 – 8.7 secs

As expected, the firework display wasn’t of the same standard (or duration) as during the International Fireworks Competition held each summer, but still, it was nice to have another opportunity to shoot some pyrotechnics.

I did shoot bracketed shots of the ships to give me the option of merging to HDR, but since it was quite windy tonight the ships were moving enough to blur the resulting merged image. So I decided to process only single frames.