Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

[glances back to check] Well, I did use <ul>, meaning an unordered list, so it's okay that the decriptions are out of order. So there. :-P

I can't see as much from my 2nd story roof as I used to because trees to the east have gotten too tall, but I'd be able to see most of the Inner Harbor show if I borrowed a ladder and got up on the 3rd story roof (my next door neighbour did exactly that -- well, he bought a ladder). In the meantime there are a whole bunch of other cities' fireworks displays visible at various distances in other directions, most of them within about 200° looking south. (North and northwest is mostly illegal backyard or sidewalk launches, small and infrequent. There are more of those in the south-facing arc as well.) The only thing that makes it an un-great fireworks-watching spot is needing to climb out a window half-over a long drop to get out on the roof (and nowadays the need to use a ladder to get up to the very top to watch the harbour display).

If I could borrow a lens with at least a 140° field of view (I know at least one Pentax lens with a 180° FOV exists but I don't know how easy it is to find) and had clear enough air to make rooftops a half mile away sharp, the downtown skyline distinct, and the horizon unblurry enough to preserve a 'sense of place' for the south and southwest portions of the picture, I could make a wicked panoramic fireworks shot from the top of my house.

While the Baltimore show tends to be more fancy, some of the others are longer, many starting half an hour earlier and finishing a while after the Baltimore one does. So there's a decent stretch of time when all the displays overlap.

Come to think of it, I may be able to do it with a 24mm rectilinear and multiple exposures stitched together. Hmm. The difficult bit is the weather. And the fact that I'd want to make a fairly large print, so sharp film and a sharp lens would be nice to have, and a larger negative than 35mm could be a big help. I think it'd just be workable with 35mm though, if no large-format camera with an ultra-wide lens is handy.

If enough places do fireworks for New Year, I could get almost the same shot then (no leaves on the trees of course) in clearer air. But there's a lot more stuff exploding in the sky on the 4th.

"Improbable" sounds like an understatement there; behind sounds more more practical. I have to think about how the scene would look in monochrome (if I shoot IR film). Does your digicam do IR as monochrome or as false-colour?

Hmm. I'm gonna have to shoot the skyline at night in IR in a few directions and see how it looks in IR without the fireworks, for clues.

By the way, were you aware of this very Spammish-seeming holiday (http://bamber.blogspot.com/2005/07/today-is-international-kissing-day.html) coming up tomorrow?