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More 4th of July photos (entire set)
Watch the slideshow (entire set)

Photos of the fireworks only
Watch the slideshow (just the fireworks)

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage and discovery of what is known today as New York City, Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks returned to the Hudson River for the first time since 2000.

This presented an unprecedented photo-op for anyone living in NJ, and I wasn’t about to pass this one. I even missed a free Jenny Lewis show for this. Am I crazy? Most likely…

I surveyed the area the night before and picked some possible spots. This one was my first choice:

The only problem with this was that they decided to close this area the next day! Also, there’s a huge free parking lot nearby: it suddenly became a $20 parking lot the next day (of course).

My second choice, also fenced off and closed to public (I love NJ):

So I settled for my third choice. Not too bad, could’ve been worse:

Anyway, people must really love the fireworks (or maybe they just love Macy’s). I got there 4 hours before the show thinking that I was early. I was wrong, all the streets were already jam-packed:

Wish I knew one of them rich folks with fancy houses there. Preferably someone friendly, like this person waving at the camera:

Finally the barges showed up, and fireboats came to rescue many bored audiences soon after:

You can guess what line this is:

Alright, show time! It happened really fast. Once it started, it almost felt like total chaos. Pretty exiting stuff, but kept me really busy and on my toes:

This video will give you a better real-time perspective:

And it was over in 30 minutes which, to me felt like 3 minutes. It really made me sweat. One barge was on fire, and apparently didn’t want the show to end:

To recap what went on during the 30 minute session:

• I was on full manual exposure mode, making constant adjustments. This was necessary because I realized that there are different types of fireworks with different brightness/delay.
• I was anywhere between 2.5 to 6 second shutter speed, f/10 to 16, and ISO around 200 to 400.
• I used the built-in timer delay (5 second), and of course everything was shot on a tripod (except for the barge on fire photo which was hand-held with ISO 1600).
• I used AF-C (Continuous-servo) focus mode. Auto-focusing was difficult because the fireworks were unpredictable, and therefore it was tough to let the camera know what areas to look for. I thought about using a couple of methods: one was just picking a stationary background object (like the Empire State Building) and sticking with it, and the other was to manually set the fixed focus based on the best-guessed range.
• I tried using AF-C to pinpoint the explosions with single-area focus point, but it became too cumbersome. I eventually ended up using the method number one – I put my focus point on a background spot and just let the camera do its work. I think it was workable because the DOF was deep enough at f/10+, and thus allowed enough room for errors.
• I mainly used the following lenses: Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, NIKKOR 10.5mm f/2.8G ED, and NIKKOR 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR. Yes, I switched them several times since I only have one camera body.
• There is one more important thing that I’ve learned from all of this, and I will keep it as a secret for now. Many of you probably know the trick already, but if you are curious please feel free to contact me in private.

I read some articles and tips on how to do this, and thought it was going to be tough. Well I was right, it was pretty tough. It was a great learning experience though.

It almost felt like Halloween with all the people flooding the streets afterwards:

Oh yes, and it took me two hours to get home… probably the toughest part of the day:

Note: this event took place on Saturday, July 4th, 2009.