Merry Christmas, and Happy Boxing Day!

It was a quiet Christmas Day for me, but there was no shortage of excitement during the countdown. I decided to stop by over to the Spring shopping mall to capture the firework display as the clock ticked down to midnight.

As a build up to the countdown, there were a string of performances spearheaded by the Blessed Church group. The array of performances included singing, and dancing.

Performance by Blessed Church Group

I didn’t manage to get any clearance or permission to get around the restricted access, hence my choices of angle was quite limited. The stage lighting for that night was quite camera friendly, the color cast wasn’t bad at all.

Dancing Performance by Blessed Church Group

Most of the stage performances were shot with 70-200mm, which worked pretty well on a APS-C camera. The crop factor gave an extra reach to the focal length, especially at the tele end at 200mm.

A very influential man — Pastor GT Lim.

The performances were quite mesmerizing, I almost forgot about getting ready for the fireworks. I didn’t have much time left to scout for a best view. I only had about 10 minutes to scout for a spot.

Merry Christmas!

The firework drew attention to a lot of people. Most of them parked their vehicles by the roadside just to admire the colorful explosive display in the sky.

For those who missed out on the Christmas countdown fireworks, and are keen to try their hands on firework photography, you have less than a week to prepare your gears during the year-end countdown. On personal note, I would personally like to shoot from a different angle, if possible. For example, maybe from a vantage point (off from higher ground), or try something interesting with my composition. This was my first time shooting firework display with an Ultra-wide angle. Last but not least, how you decide to expose your shots during this firework display is quite crucial to the final result.

If you miss out on the year-end countdown, you’ll probably have to wait for another year for a bigger scale firework display. You may have a lot of fireworks during Chinese New Year eve, but I’m sure there aren’t as synchronized as of these occassions.