Happy #newyear from #eastboston looking over the harbor at #boston MA, USA. Interesting thing about this photo: the city lights show some horizontal jitter, because this is a handheld shot (with the help of a fence) and I couldn't keep the camera still throughout the 4 second exposure. But the #fireworks look undisturbed by the jitter. What explains that? Not 100% sure. Maybe the fireworks were faster than the camera motion, or maybe they were recorded before/after it occurred. #photography
@rudi neat! I strongly suspect that the camera movement was slow compared with the “sparks” movement. Drift rather than jitter. If so, that would skew the *shape* of the burst rather than the *lines*. That is, if the burst was perfectly circular, but the camera drifting, the burst center would not be in the apparent center of the spark ends - if that makes sense.
@Rdyounger yes! Thanks for your comment. That’s what I was thinking too but couldn’t quite verbalize. Quick jitter would have been visible as a jagged bump in the light trails but slow drift distorts the curves in a way that still looks natural/expected for fireworks. Thanks for mentioning the drift vs jitter distinction — helpful.