Kodachrome 25 Circa 1982

[MartinCrabtree]

July 4th 1982 to be exact. I just got a scanner today and been playing with some stuff I haven't seen in forever. Canon AE-1 w/50mm1.8 most likely and exposure forgotten. Climbed onto the hotel roof for these.

[Attila]

Last one is especially beautiful!

[cooltouch]

Great old Kodachromes. I have ones that date back almost that far back -- 1983 to be exact.

[Excalibur]

Like the fireworks.......was the camera on semi auto? or did you select shutter time manually?

[philslizzy]

I imagine the camera was set to a fixed (slow) shutter speed. The AE1 auto would not have worked with this type of image.

[MartinCrabtree]

The exposures are lost to time however the AE-1 is shutter priority so I did set the speeds. Frankly I had eaten so much LSD that night these shots are nothing more than pure luck. Shortly after the top photo was taken a very large police officer appeared out of nowhere and told us in no uncertain terms it was time to get off the roof. The foibles of youth.

At that time of my life I was just "takin' pitchers". Had no clue what I was doing. Yet some of my work I like the most is from that time. Seeing this stuff after so much time has passed has given me pause. I do believe I'm trying too hard these days.

[cooltouch]

I took some photos that are the same type as these shortly after buying my AE-1, and I've done it many times since. This is what I did. I set my 50mm lens to f/16, shutter speed to B and kept it open for the duration of the individual firework. Then for multi-exposures, I kept pushing in the film rewind button on the bottom to recock the shutter. For the fireworks finale -- which is where they shoot off a bunch all at once -- I just left the shutter open on "B" for the entire last multiple burst. The only problem I've found with the finale is there is so much fireworks going off that often there's a lot of smoke associated with it, and sometimes the smoke obscures some of the image.

Here's a tip I learned from experience regarding taking pics of fireworks. Don't trip the shutter when you see the burst because if you do there will be a blank spot in the middle of the burst. This was where the initial explosion took place, but wasn't recorded because you were watching for the bursts. What you want to do is listen. When they shoot off those big fireworks, it sounds like a mortar being fired. You'll hear a dull *thump* and often you can see a trail of sparks as the firework ascends. So what you want to do is open the shutter when you hear the *thump*. This will also often catch that rising trail of sparks in the photo as well, which can make things look even more interesting.

[LucisPictor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZpaNJqF4po