Thursday, June 28, 2012

Ferris Wheel Light Show

Summer would not be complete without a carnival! Our city just celebrated "Strawberry Days" and part of the festivities was a carnival downtown complete with fun, food and rides. So of course we had to take the boys and enjoy the fun!


We lucked out and went to the carnival on the night that all the rides were only one ticket! So we rode on almost everything. This year one of the highlights was definitely the Ferris Wheel! The boys rode on the Ferris Wheel with me, and though they thought it was a bit scary at first, they loved it!

I loved the Ferris Wheel for a different reason. While waiting in line for a ride I experimented with TV mode on my camera and changed the length of the exposure while the Ferris Wheel was moving. When I got home and saw the pictures, I was inspired to go back with my tripod and take some more pictures.


I wanted to see what would happen if I set up my tripod and took pictures of the Ferris Wheel in motion. I varied the length of time the shutter was opened, just to see what would happen. I LOVE the pictures I ended up with!



First I set my shutter to stay open for one second. I ended up with pictures that I think look like fan blades, like the one above. Then I decided to go for even longer.


I kept changing the shutter speed and just kept snapping. I got some really cool patterns that I think look like flowers.


For most of these pictures I had the exposure set at 2 seconds.


Then I tried for some even longer exposures. The next two photos I left the shutter open for 2.5 seconds. Pretty cool, huh?


What a fun, Ferris Wheel light show! It was so much fun to experiment and see what kind of photos I ended up with.


I was actually trying to get a photo for the prompt "continuous circles". I got the pictures I was looking for at 2.5 and 3 seconds.


So in the end not only did I get the photo that I wanted, I also had a lot of fun and ended up with a ton of cool pictures. Next time I may have to give this a try on some of the other rides too! So fun!

Give me your best shot at Better in BulkPhotoStory Friday
friday favorite things | finding joythe long roadHappily Mother After

22 comments:

  1. Those came out so great!! I love ferris wheels and the light show they provide at night!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh my, these pictures are incredible!! What amazing night shoots...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Those are amazing! I can't wait for a fair to come to town, so I can play!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. So so SO cool!!! I need night photography lessons from you!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. These are gorgeous!! Love them all!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh, so much fun playing with exposure! Love the shots! :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Love these shots! They've inspired me to learn how to take better night shots. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Whao..really lovely night shots of the ferries wheel. Haven't started playing with exposure.. am really tempted to learn more about using a DSLR.

    ReplyDelete
  9. So fun!! We've never waited in line for the Ferris Wheel. I love the pictures!!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. These are great pictures! Very cool.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Oh, I love these; how fun! They made for some really great pictures; very cool!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Those shots are so cool! What a great idea!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I really enjoy night time photography and your shots of the ferris wheel at night are awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  14. So cool!! I have been wanting to do that and still haven't gotten a chance. Great shots.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Great stuff here! I love that you shared the different exposures, that is really helpful! So colorful, I hope you made a lot of great memories! happy Friday!

    Mindy~

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hey, what a great set! I really enjoyed seeing the progression as you played with your exposure time- I feel inspired!

    ReplyDelete
  17. HOW FUN! I'm totally impressed that you went back with your tripod & with the images you captured. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Those are so awesome! Love the colors

    ReplyDelete
  19. I love this, thanks for sharing. Gotta try sometime.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Really cool shots. Great work! Hope I have the opportunity one day! Thanks so much for sharing and linking to our Summer Daze!

    ReplyDelete
  21. These are so awesome! Thanks for joining us in the Summer Daze Fun Photo Party! I'm playing catch up on the links I missed the other week. I'm so sorry for showing up late. Have a great day!

    ReplyDelete