Last year at the Scherschel Fireworks Extravaganza, we messed around with using sparklers and long exposures on the camera. This year I wanted to try it again, but instead of sparklers, I had picked up some red, green and blue battery powered glow sticks. They had lanyards attached to them which made them very easy to swing around. The results were quite interesting and I’d love to try it again. Here are a couple examples. For the bottom one I moved around creating the light swirls and then stood very still and briefly shone a flashlight on my face for a spooky effect.
If you want to try this yourself, you’ll need a camera with manual controls and a sturdy tripod. Specifically I took these photos with a 30 second exposure, an aperture setting around f/10 and ISO 100. It takes a few test shots to dial it in just right, but once you do, it’s easy to repeat.
The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is a pretty big shin dig in these parts. Imagine 100,000 of your closest friends driving up I-5 and then getting off on some tiny exit to sit in traffic in fields. Usually Tyla and I head up there on the motorcycle with ~100 other riders for the annual Tulip Ride, but we missed it this year because it fell on our one year anniversary. So this year we headed up there with Tim and Chelsea and had a blast! When we’re there on the bikes, we’re going on a prearranged date and we have a schedule to stick to. This time we waited for a glorious sunny day and took our time.
I’ve been longingly reading dSLR reviews for the past year, and it all paid off because Tyla and I got one for our Christmas gift to each other. The hardest part of the whole thing was deciding between Nikon and Canon. I got a lot of recommendations for both sides, but we ended up going with the Canon T2i. To me, this camera is the leading candidate in the $700-800 range. The picture quality is impressive and the video features beat most of the competition. That being said, you can’t really go wrong either way.
