18 August 2007

Malaysia International Fireworks Competition - Day 1


Today (18 September) is the first day of the Malaysia International Fireworks Competition (MIFC) which is held in conjunction of the 50th Independence Day celebration. The competition will be held from 18 September 2007 to 2 September 2007 where there are four (4) nations competing - Malaysia, Australia, Italy and Japan. The venue of the competition is at Putrajaya International Convention Centre where the fireworks will be fired off from the lake in front of the centre. The centre have a great view over the Seri Gemilang Bridge.

I took off from home at 7.00 p.m. to ensure myself a good spot to shoot the event. Once I arrived, there were many other photographers all ready for the fireworks shoot. I managed to get a place facing the centre of the bridge. I set up my tripod and camera and at the same time managed to share some tips from other photographers on the optimum set up for shooting fireworks show. Most of us were "armed" with Nikon SLRs so there were no problems in sharing the information. To ensure I decided to shoot in RAW.

The opening ceremony started at about 9.30 a.m. where there were speeches read out but I was unable to get a word outof what was said. The fireworks competition started at about 9.50 p.m. and the first team for the night is Team Malaysia. The fireworks were shot out from the banks of the lake and the presentation was great. Since each shot would require an exposure of about 10 seconds and processing time would take another 5 seconds, shooting the fireworks competion was slow but it allowed me some time to enjoy it. The fireworks show lasted for about half and hour but about 20 minutes into the show my camera battery became weak and I did not manage to maximize shooting the whole event.

After the show, it's time to go home. Well it was not only me who is going home... for the first time I was caught in a jam in Putrajaya. All along the way driving back home, the 3 lane highway were packed with cars.

I reached home at about 11.30. Since the shots are in RAW, I do not have much time to process most of them. More photos will be publish tomorrow when I start to process it.

Tomorrow night, I would be going there again to shoot Team Global.

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