Last night I took the camera along to watch the 2008 new years eve fireworks at the Gosford waterfront with the intention of taking a few colourful shots. We had watched the Central Coast Mariners play before hand and there was a bit of traffic on the roads so getting to the location I selected took longer than expected. As a result all of the "good" positions were taken by the many onlookers and we arrived without much time at all to spare.

It was low tide so to get a better view I took off my thongs and walked out into the muddy water while being vary careful not to end up on my rear in the water. I decided not to use the tripod as I wasn't comfortable setting it up in water so all of my shots were hand held (possibly my biggest mistake). This meant that I wasn't able to use my cameras bulb mode (allowing the shutter to stay open as long as I desire) and needed to have my shutter speed fairly quick to avoid camera shake. I managed to avoid camera shake from most of the shots but the down side of this was that the shots were more underexposed than I would've liked.

I had a bit of a search on the web today to see if there was any profound knowledge out there that could've helped me last night. Most of the articles I found generally say the same thing and I agree: I should've used a tripod or monopod. There was one quite well written article I found on Digital Photography School, you can read it here.

The moral of the story is: When it comes to photography you need to be prepared. Don't rush things, arrive before the event begins and plan how you want to shoot. Then, you will have a greater chance of capturing the photos you want.

I will be looking over my NYE images in the next few days and will upload any that are of sufficient quality.