Canada Day '99 Fireworks report

[Greg Erker <erker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  On June 30th the forecast was for cloudy
and 60% probability of rain for July 1 (Canada
Day). But the weather turned out much better
than that for most of the day. Sunny all
afternoon but clouding up towards evening.

  My brother Pat came to Saskatoon to go to
the fireworks and take photos. I offered
to let him share my big bar for his pair of
Pentax Super Programs if he mounted them
over my two tripod points (5' separation)
and didn't fire during my shots.

  It started lightly raining 5 minutes before
the start of the fireworks (at 10:30). But
stopped just before the fireworks began
(or mostly stopped).

  I managed to take 11 of my 12 shots before
the 12 minute fireworks show ended. Usually
the show goes about 15 minutes but they seemed
to be shooting bigger volleys during the
finale than previous years. Pat got off about
15 or 17 shots. Both of us were slowed by the
other, but we did okay.

  Dropped off the rolls on Friday and picked
them up after work yesterday. Preliminary
indication is that I did better than '95 but
not as good as '97.

  I was shooting at f9.5 (1/2 stop smaller than
97) to get better colour in the fireworks. But
the sky was darker this year due to heavy clouds
so perhaps I should have stayed with f8.

  Two shots (with nicely centered bursts) are
super dim with only the center of the burst
very visible. They might still look okay in my
well blackened viewer but I was surprised how
much darker they were than the rest of the shots
on these rolls.

  I lost shot number one because the left camera
didn't fire. Poor cable releasing on my part I
guess.

  I also have mysterious lens-flare-like blobs
in some of my right camera shots, but not all.
The best I can figure is that I got a rain drop
on the RH camera lens (inspite of the lens shades)
and on some bursts the light is such that the bead
of water can focus some light into a blob on the
film.

  I'm kicking myself a bit for not checking the lenses
for water before the fireworks, though it may have
happened after they started and we aimed the cameras
up at 45 degrees.

  I think I'll have about 5 or 6 decent shots if you
can ignore the retinal rivalry from the blobs on some
of them. Two or three flaw free ones, though they may
not have the best fireworks bursts.

  So, was it worth 15 or 20 evenings of cutting and
filing and about $100? Yes. 2001 here we come.

Greg