PicStream: NYC Fireworks

[Canon EOS 40D, F 16, 6.0 sec, ISO:100, 2010-6-27]

Today evening, I was surprised to see some fantastic fireworks from my window. The view was simply amazing. Normally, I would be prepared to shoot an event like this - I would have read what kind of lens settings I need, what effect a larger or a smaller aperture would have on the image. At the very least I would have chosen the location, setup my tripod etc ... But not today, I turned around and the magic had already started.

I had to quickly choose the window from my house, setup the tripod, put my Canon 24-70mm lens and had few seconds to think about the settings. I imagined these shots to be of longer duration(4 - 15 sec), given there is plenty of city light in the background, I did not want to over-expose the shot by opening the aperture wide. Since there is already plenty of light generated by the fireworks itself a smaller ISO number(100-200) is good enough to avoid extra noise in the picture.