Summer is in full swing now, meaning that it's very hot and sticky. It is however good for the Sigma because the days stay lighter for longer, meaning that I can keep it at a low ISO for longer.

Ironically, I was shooting fireworks last night, and that's one place where you always keep the ISO as low as possible, making up for it with long shutter speeds. Typically ISO 100, F8 or thereabouts and exposures of around 4 seconds, more if you want longer trails. The other tricky element is that the Merrill doesn't yet have any form of remote release (one of the things considered almost mandatory for fireworks), so I was experimenting with the 2-second shutter delay and also just seeing if I could get away with pressing the shutter button and seeing what happened.

But first, some regular, daytime shots from the last week or so.

"Wallflowers"

Nice colour scheme between the building and the sky

Mandatory reflection shot

Flowers from the back

People at market

Rock

On to the fireworks. These were shot in Gamagori, a 40-odd-minute train ride from Nagoya. It's one of the large fireworks displays in the area (there are others in Inuyama and Okazaki, and I went to both last year. I might do so again this year if the weather is co-operative).  I had to guess at the best spot to shoot, because of course I was limited to a single focal length (last year I had a zoom on a D7000). From the pictures I got, I was slightly too close, but by shooting both in portrait and landscape orientation I got some quite nice frame filling shots. From around 60 pictures I shot, there were 8 which I was happy with, which is not a bad hit rate.

As I said, there may be more fireworks shots along later, depending on schedules and weather.

Thanks for looking!