Saturday, 10th November 2012: Some “traditions” have a strange start. This is a recent family tradition – we go to the Ely Firework show and meet with friends and then go for a curry afterwards.
It kind of started because some friends, who used to live in Ely suggested it. However they no longer live in Ely and this year they couldn’t even make it. We still went though and met with the other friends – although not until the end of the display.
This year we headed into Ely via Burwell only to find long queues as we approached Ely, they were doing some work on the railway bridge and so all traffic had to go over the railway line and stop for any trains. The level crossing has four tracks crossing it so it did cause a few problems.
The display seems to be getting more popular each year. Fortunately we managed to book a table at one of the Indian restaurants – although they did ring back to see if we could move the time a little – sorry – but we had no control over the timing of the fireworks.
Fortunately we had booked the table with time to spare after the display, because so much traffic was held up they delayed the start of the display. This allowed us to queue, drive around a car park or two, park in one quite far away and still turn up on time. (We also had another friend, who also used to live in Ely who was able to get us to a car park and the quick way from the said car park to the display.
The display is held in Cherry park with the Cathedral as a backdrop and works very well to give the crowds a good view of the fireworks. (The clue is in the name – hill).
For choice I would ideally like to take my tripod and pre-focus and pre-set the speed and aperture. However that was not possible. Also because we were late and it was dark I wasn’t able to try a few experimental pictures first. So to start I used the Cathedral as a point of reference. I was using my 14-140mm zoom which is 28-280mm in 35mm film camera terms. I will quote the actual zoom not the 35mm equivalent.
Ely Cathedral at 140mm zoom
Ely Cathedral at 87mm zoom
Ely Cathedral at 14mm zoom
The rest are fireworks
The only thing to add is I took loads and loads of pictures – very few were any good at all, what with shake, poor framing, poor exposure…
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