New year, same frustrations

Ahh, a new year. I celebrated my first New Year here in Taiwan yesterday and was very excited to try my newly acquired mastery (I read a blog somewhere) of fireworks shooting on the famous Taipei 101 fireworks show. I asked my wife to bring my trusty D50, my cheap but functional tripod, and my amazingly useful little infrared remote control. I knew what to do: small aperture, low ISO, extended exposures.

By five minutes past midnight, my camera's monitor was showing some great pictures of the spectacular light show. At around 2AM of 1/1/2009, after a few hugs and goodbyes and xin nian kuai les, I was finally able to get home and boot up my computer. With hands trembling in excitement, I inserted the memory card of great and important content. Right-click Start, select Explore, navigate to F:, look at all the nice thumbnails, double-click what appears to be the most exciting picture and voila... I see the world's tallest building (need to check if this still holds) lit up by amazing fireworks and all the glorious... wait... Where the hell did all this blur come from? Why did I let this happen? Now, I have to wait another year, making sure that I still live in Taipei and that I still know someone living in a building with a great view of THE Taiwanese mega structure. Oh well, life sucks.

But it's a new year, and I'm still excited. I'm starting this new blog for one, although I'm still unsure what I shall write about. It will probably feature more blurry pics, but will hopefully have some nice sharp ones with fairly interesting (yawn) subjects.

So what happened to my Taipei 101 fireworks pics? I couldn't figure out how to use bulb mode (extended limitless exposure) with my infrared remote, so I pressed the shutter button with my finger and kept it pressed until I was ready to close the shutter. Turns out this was like hand-holding a long exposure shot (only with the help of a tripod). I got the fireworks, but the shots were blurry in a nasty way. When I tried the remote, I was pressing it too hard, causing the shutter to open and close with a single press. A light remote press would have opened the shutter without immediately closing it. Another light press would have closed it, finishing what COULD HAVE BEEN THE MOST AWESOME shots of Taipei 101.

Hmm... somehow it just doesn't seem right to dwell on what could have been right at the start of the year.