Beginner Blackpool Illuminations

Tripod is sugested. Other than that settings can vary depending on what you're trying to achieve. No fancy kit needed, 24-105 should suffice.
I hope you're not intending to spend more than one evening in Blackpool. It really is a most dismal place, and the Illuminations are far from the best light show you'll see. A pale shadow (see what I did there?) of their former glory.
Unless you're on a stag/hen do in which case you'll only be interested in getting drunk/getting your end away.

Edit- just seen you're from North Devon. IMHO it's not worth making the trip!!!
 
Last edited:
For some time now - years - the Tower has had scaffolding and white tarpaulins round the middle. Last year lights on it were out more than on.
Unless the council have invested heavily the lights main function is to extend the season for the tawdry sea front shops.
You can probably get to the Central London Xmas displays cheaper and quicker and get better results.
 
Pretty much any standard zoom will be perfectly adequate, if you've got one a UWA lens probably wouldn't go a miss, assuming you want to get pretty much landscape/cityscape type photos, if your interested in specific details of illuminations a slightly longer focal lenth might prove useful :)

A couple of mine from a trip a couple of years back to shoot the lights..p


Blackpool Tram - Experiment by mwhcvt, on Flickr


295/366 (660) by mwhcvt, on Flickr

Both of these were shot at 24mm for those on a crop camera you'd needs approx a 15mm lens get the same FoV

Now I concentrated mainly on long exposures/light trails as it's my main interest and reason for attending and if you need help on that I'd suggest reading my light trails guide linked in my signature...

However I'd also recommend going for some shorter exposures to try and freeze without moment the illuminated trams...as they really are very impressive and that will be my aim the next time I visit...for that you'll want to likely shoot between f/5-8 and as high ISO as your comfortable with on your camera to get as fast of a shutter speed as you can, you can always open your lens up completely but that might just present some DoF issues...ideally I'd be aiming for at least 1/60th as this should be fast enough to freeze the action
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top