Canada Day: July 1
Canada Day is a national day celebrating the anniversary of the July 1, 1867 enactment of the British North America Act, which united Canada as a single country, which was in turn composed of four provinces.
Canada Day celebration
Crowded street
Crowd at Yonge-Dundas Square
There were some celebrations at the Young-Dundas Square. We didn’t stick around for a long time because it was very chaotic and crowded. Which is not a bad thing at all!
Fireworks
The day ended with spectacular fireworks at the Harbourfront Center.
Volume 1, Edition 23
Happy people on the streets, yay! By the way, what’s your camera? I find it really hard to shoot fireworks and have them come out decent.
Happy people? I don’t know, they were not as happy as 3 days ago at the Pride parade! LOL. Nowhere close!
I use Canon Powershot A520. It’s a pretty basic point and shoot camera that I got back in 2005 and it still works very well. π The trick is to take pictures at a fast shutter speed – that will prevent blurs due to camera shaking. Most cameras have a Manual (M) or Shutter priority (Tv), and if not, you could always use the ‘Fast’ mode.
I have yet to try my hand at shooting fireworks but they do look so beautiful. Did you use a tripod?
Thanks Mridula, I haven’t used a tripod… As you may know, tripod is useful only when you want to achieve a high exposure. In this case, Fireworks are usually bright enough.
Tried capturing fireworks once, with miserable results! Yours are, as always, what to say, well, um…, you know…., ah…(ad infinitum).
Hahahaa, comeon Mahendra, its possible! Lets try it again, Shooting fireworks is possible even with a basic P & S camera:
The first step is deciding which mode to choose. My camera has a ‘Fireworks’ mode, but its crap since the shutter exposure is set to 2 seconds by default. That’s a too much exposure time and you’ll need a tripod to prevent camera shakes. Fireworks are bright enough, so it’s possible to use a higher shutter speed (such as the ‘Fast’ or ‘Sports’ mode) but the best way to go is the Shutter priority (Tv) or Manual (M) modes. Most cameras support these. I set exposure to 0.5 seconds and that was enough to capture the brightness of fireworks while keeping the blurs and jerks away. You might have to hold steady for 0.5 seconds, but that’s achievable! All the best!
OK, thanks for the tips! Will check out my earlier experiments to analyze where I failed. π
Everyone is asking about how you captured the fireworks. π
Well, I haven’t tried them myself, but as far as I know, its hard without a tripod because night shots have a tendency to get blurred. So, good pics. π
Thanks Amit,
Dude, take a look at my response to Mahendra above. It’s possible to take pics without a tripod! Really!:)
Hey Priyank thanks for the fireworks photo, I missed them as my Matthew decided to go sleep early, even slept through shooting firework noise. Oh well there is always next year….Anna π
Thanks Anna. Yeah there no higher priority than putting your little one to bed!
Hey, great fireworks shots. We were going to go out to view ours and take some pics but I got called into work,sucks to be me,lol.
Thanks Bob! You worked on Canada day night??, aww….
Looks like a fun day. Makes me miss July 4 in the US.
Nice shots of fireworks
Thanks !
Forgot to mention…..many many years back…I was in Ottawa on Canada Day….loved the celebrations. Ottawa and Quebec city are my favorite cities in Canada.
Oh, which other cities have you been to? Because hardly anyone calls Ottawa as their favorite city! But I guess the Canada Day thing there is bigger and nicer! So yeah I see your point. π
Nice fireworks pictures! I skipped the fireworks in Ottawa, because the weather wasn’t so great.
I had heard a lot of celebrations in TO had been canceled because of the garbage strike…
Oh the garbage strike…! I should make a Tuesday post about the beautiful garbage sights we are having…!!