Personal, Friends, Festive, Photos, Events
2008 Countdown Fireworks at The Curve
I happened to be privileged enough to have Miss B for company last night. We took a drive down to The Curve to join hundreds - possibly thousands - of revelers there to usher in the new year. There were more than one countdown at The Curve, and at least 3 fireworks displays around the vicinity of Mutiara Damansara. No wonder the crowd. And the jam ;)
We thought we had to leave in disappointment because the first two fireworks displays were both too far away and obstructed by buildings. Just as we were walking towards our car, a loud explosion coming from right above sent us both ducking our heads in reflex. That was one heck of a delightful surprise! We had never seen fireworks at such a close range before!
I had my tripod with me but I didn’t bother to set it up. It would have taken way too much time. For the first time, I am fairly satisfied with my fireworks photos taken without actually using a tripod! The down side was of course, the neck ache. Imagine tilting your head almost vertically upwards while trying not to shake your camera - for close to 10 minutes. I took intermittent breaks.
The best thing about shooting fireworks handheld was that you can recompose very, very quickly. As you know, my last fireworks photography was during the MIFC in Putrajaya last year (ahem, last year is correct!) when I was still using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7. So last night marked the first time I shoot fireworks with my new baby. The camera response and speed never fail to amaze me.
To improve stability and reduce shakes, I conveniently took two steps backwards and leaned my ass against one really sexy Mazda. I didn’t dare to use shutter speeds beyond 2.5 seconds lest I’d get blurry pics. Btw, I realize that if you shake, you won’t actually get blurry fireworks, but instead, crooked flares! Interesting!
We later adjourned to a nearby mamak outlet, where Abdul, Gan and Jasmyin were having their supper as well. Jasmyin went like “Dayyyyviiiiddd!!” when I walked over to their table. I liked that, hahaha… Hadn’t seen her in a while… it was pleasant ;)
How did you usher in the new year?
P/s: I’m making a trip up north to the Pearl of the Orient this weekend! As a tourist! Yay!
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01 Jan 2008 narrowband
Happy new year 2008!
selamat tahun baru, i think this is the 2nd or 3rd time wishing. great shots on the fireworks :P
I wanna talk about Miss B… AHEMMMMMMM!! ;P Lu manyak happening… see, I was RIGHT about the ‘thing’ I said about you in my blog haha! Dun forget to tell us the story when “it” happens, OK? Deal? No Deal? D E A L !!! :p
Have a great year ahead! Enjoy the Pg Longkang Laksa! The rojak! The char koay teow, chee cheong fun, curry mee, etc etc! Hugshugshugs!
i was at home watching X-men…
Happy New Year…
Great fotos bro.. handheld someomre hebat ;)
Btw Happy new year!! No wonder i receive yr sms at 5am in the morning lol.
Happy New Year 2008, narrowband!
That sounds and looks like a good way to end 2007 eh, with Miss B and your baby and fireworks display… (eh, so after that got lormantik fireworks or not? Lawl.)
And so fast your 2008 is gonna be happening… first trip coming up! Bringing your baby along or not? I want more pictures…
happy new year to you too! Hehehehee.. seems like ur NYE was fun!
ah well for me, friends came over to hang out, tapao-ed McD, played PSP, etc. Normal stuff ;)
Wuching - Happy… happy… everybody happy!
Sat - Yea man it’s getting redundant but whuttuhheckk ;p Thanks man, when you starting shooting fireworks yourself? :p
Angel - Eh eh… *geleng kepala*. Miss B itu kawan semata-mata (actually kawan lama juga). You terlebih sensitif -_-”. NO DEAL wan lar - you’ll wait til neck also long like giraffe ;p
Banyak recommendation ah! I see how much my perut can muat ya… :D *HUGGSSSS*
Zewt - Oh I just watched that last week. Alone. I know it was one of the highlights last month. Happy new year to you!
Vic - I was reluctant to shoot dy cos lazy to set up tripod, and summore elapsed for quite some time dy. Then Miss B kasi sikit prep talk and my tangan also itchy liao. Surprisingly satisfied with the results!
Actually couple of weeks ago I saw a forum with fireworks pics, some were taken handheld too and I thought ‘mana mungkin!?’. Now I know ;p Happy new year!
Rinnah - Happy 2008! Well, does sound like all the right ingredients thrown in eh? But nooo… we’re old friends and it was a completely ordinary outing!
Ah of course must bring baby along… never go travel without it! There will be pictures :D
Julee - Simple, easy-going and yes, fun! Especially when I get to shoot fireworks, hehehe.
Ah hey, yours was not bad too! PSP is da bomb okay! On a NYE, no it’s not normal stuff anymore:p
now why can’t i take pictures like that?
happy new year dude
Wonderful shot you got ! Really nice fireworks ! Fireworks also represent a new beginning of celebration of the year. My friends also went there for countdown..
Happy New year and wish you have a great year ahead !
ahah Happy New Year 2008!!
bad memories we delete it,and we store and save good memory, and we create good memory in year 2008, and update our anti virus to clean all the bad memories future…
Happy New Year 2008
Miss B eh? Hmm hmm…It was a ’someone’? Haha
Btw, just want to let you know, that link you have on Abdul’s name is the wrong Abdul. That fat bugger does not blog. I doubt you know the Abdul that I linked on my bloglist. So, you’d probably want to remove the link.
happy new year! i happen to be standing directly under those fireworks and trust me, it wasn’t pleasant at all. Lots of bits of stuff keep falling on my head and it smells of rotten eggs. Great pics btw!
Wishing you a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
sewjin, that’s coz you don’t have his high tec camera la!!!
btw, you don’t even own a camera -.-
anyway, narrowband! happy new year :)
Awesome shot! :-> I bet you have a pleasant and enjoyable countdown with miss B :-)
I was once in the curve for countdown… if not mistaken it was the year 2006 countdown. A bunch of us there @ the curve… it was the first year that the curve has this countdown concept @ the mall.
Guess what? I stuck in Starbucks for 2 hours just to wait for the traffic to be cleared @ the basement. It was not a pleasant wait with the coffee, when i got back, i could not sleep due to drinking too much alcohol with coffee… Anyway, it was a great nite.
Maybe we could get together for next year countdown then ;-)
Awesome shots as always!
All the best in 2008. :)
Nice shot Vid! But I have the different view of fireworks. It was from Taipei 101 Tower, where the fireworks were shot from the building! I was so amazed till I can’t stop clapping my hands and “Wow~ wow~ and wow~” Psstt.. I was viewing it from 42 inch LCD.. Haha..
I was at home watching dvds. Happy new year Narrowband…
First of all, Happy New Year!! I, too watched the Curve fireworks but from afar - just outside my apartment. At first, I was disappointed with the fireworks because it looked so ‘lame’ compared to previous years. When it finished, people began to disperse. So did we - and then the second wave of the fireworks started. Wow! That was the one we were waiting for! Totally awesome, even from distance. Later as I looked outside at the main roads, the jam stretched as far as the eye could see. Poor things. ;)
Nice and awesome firework shots.
Happy new year, Narrowband :)
very well taken! the fireworks look very nice..
i was getting away from one utama when ti was nearing 12! scared of jam :D
Nice countdown, me sitting at home counting down how many days left before exam….. Lucky today is the last paper!! Wo hoo!!
Anyway, I tagged you, thanks to me for the first tag in 2008~
hehehe coming soon. tied down to so much work lately but i don’t think there’ll be any fireworks soon.
Sewjin - Who says you can’t? You can! :D
Keeyit - Many people were at The Curve… but luckily we managed to find one
parkingspace to park our car :pMerdurian - Happy, happy, you too!!
iCalvyn - But I have some not-good-not-bad ones… they’re a little annoying sometimes but other times can be pleasant. How ar? Hehehe…
Gan - B she is! ;p Oh hey, thanks for the point that out!
Dan - I hope they weren’t hot… I liked the feeling of being underneath the fireworks :p It feels like we’re under a very starry-starry sky!
Adam - Thank you so much for the kind words! The same goes to you too, Adam ;)
Esther - The camera contributes about… 60%. So you’re partially right :p Happy new year!
TZ - It was enjoyable indeed :) We were pretty late but managed to find a
parkingspace. Besides, we didn’t walk far away. Hehe. When the show was over we just walked abit and reached our car liao. Took less half an hour to reach a nearby mamak for supper :pHey, sounds like a good idea! We should!
Che-cheh - You sound like my no. 1 supporter la Che-cheh. That’s why I’m always motivated to write (and take photos) :p
Cybie - From LCD where got nice… not real also :p Ours need several hundreds of LCD screens to cover! Hehehe… :-P
Mamakcorner - Thank you Mamakcorner… I think watching DVD at home is a very good way to usher in the new year too… hassle free, simple and cheap!
Bkworm - I think we both liked the second one huh! Yeah the jam must have been bad - we went the other way (inside) instead for a munch. Let the traffic ease off a little first :p
Chen - Thank you, Chen! Same to you as well!
Cbenc12 - Luckily I didn’t really experience much of the jam… or maybe I did… but all the chit-chatting in the car made it seem like the jam was not there :p
Vhanded - Oh I remember having to stay home on new year’s eve because of exams… haha. Those were the days… ;) Oh? I’ll go take a look! Thanks :D
Sat - That’s good at least you get to fiddle around and familiarize yourself with your new toy before actually tackling fireworks! :P
whoa geng! exposure 1.3s handheld some more! hebat! :respect: but why did you vary your aperture between shots? did you anticipate the fireworks would be brighter or dimmer? hehe nice shots!
u shud hv bot ur supercamera b4 the merdeka countdown fireworks thingy la..the pix look fab! hehe happy new yr dearie!
KJ - Rarely come across someone who’d actually analyze my exif data. I’m glad you found them interesting, if not baffling. No I did not anticipate brighter or dimmer fireworks, I was trying something out. A friend once taught me to increase F-stop values to block out excessive smoke - I was experimenting that to see how it could help.
The effort was a little inconclusive, as far as smoke was concerned, but a larger F-stop value does help to ‘filter’ away ‘fringing’ lights (aroudn the edges)… I’m sure you know what I mean :p
HC - No money that time ma. I blew away more than one month’s salary for it! Thanks, and happy new year year to you too! :)
It does help a lil bit to hide the smoke with smaller aperture :) and yeah, if you use f2.8 with 1.3s, all you’ll get are small lil blobs of light instead of nice firework lines :) and smaller aperture will increase the sharpness, as you mentioned, less fringing, and it will also create a ’starry’ light effect :)
I’m still wondering when will sat get his toy ;)
He has already bought it. See his comment in Jasonmumble’s Canon EOS 40D entry :p
Happy New Year 2008 dude, the images are so nice. But anyway last time the firework competition nicer.