Video: Making Creative Use of Focus to Capture Ethereal Firework Footage

In the past, we’ve shared a few creative ways to take your fireworks shots to the next level. Be it shooting hand-held long exposures for an abstract result or refocusing during a long-exposure, the results can be quite stunning.

The video above combines a couple of techniques we’ve shared before, making wonderful use of bokeh and the refocusing technique to create a mesmerizing minute of footage.

The video was created by photographer and med student Stanislas Giroux, whose stated goal is “to give people goosebumps.” To achieve that with this video, he went out and shot some fireworks with his trusty Canon T2i.

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The footage itself was captured at 720p and 60fps, while Giroux played around with the focus ring on his 50mm f/1.8. Post-processing involved applying the Echo Effect in After Effects to the brightest parts of the video in order to keep the flower-like patterns and light trails from fading as fast. This allowed him to capture those “old school filmy light trails that occurred on old non-CCD cameras when a bright light spot was filmed.”

Of course, you don’t have to understand or know any of that to sit back and enjoy the video. But if you want more details on capturing fireworks photos using this same technique, be sure to check out our previous coverage by clicking here.

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