This is a series of fifteen photographs of a spectacular, eight minute firework display at Ibstone House on the evening of 2nd. July 2000. The photographs were taken 1 Km. away, in a field across the valley, high in the Chiltern hills.

The colours are as they appear on the transparency and have not been altered in any way and if your monitor has been colour optimised you will see the display just as it was on the night.

The transparencies were scanned in using an Epson 1200S with film adapter. Adobe Photo Delux and Corel Photo Paint were used as scanning software and to resample the size. Maximum resolution was used when converting to JPEG and 75% Unsharp mask was added on completion.

Equipment

The 75mm. lens was used as I wasn't sure of the area of sky that would be covered by the display and I wanted to be sure of capturing the whole display. In hindsight it would have been better to use the 150mm. lens for better resolution and minimum cropping. I suppose I should have had two cameras as there is no time to change lenses with this type of subject, although perhaps not, as there's no time to change cameras either. This would have been a problem anyway as it started to rain just as the display got underway.

Settings

Film: Fuji Provia, ISO 100 (not actually set as the camera was used manually)
Aperture: f8
Focus: Infinity
Shutter: B
Method
A black card was held over the lens. The shutter was then opened, using a cable release, and the black card removed.
After two or three bursts of fireworks (I didn't do any timing) the black card was placed over the lens again and the shutter closed, film wound on and the process repeated.

The idea of the black card was to prevent the effects of camera shake due to the mirror "clonk" of the Bronica. Well, that's the theory. If you are using 35mm. there is no need to do this as the mirrors are much smaller.