smile
Junior Pyro Member
Posts: 89
|
Post by smile on Nov 1, 2019 19:01:20 GMT -5
Anyone have self shot videos of “Seismic Thunder”, “The Proud”, and/or “CDC9494”? I shot them off last night during Halloween and was disappointed because they looked drastically different from the videos produced by the manufacturer. I always expect a bit of variance from the videos but these almost looked like completely different products... Thanks in advance!  |
|
|
|
Post by Grisom on Jan 13, 2020 10:33:05 GMT -5
One of our guys is doing a winter test shoot - I will ask him to try and get video of those three items .
|
|
smile
Junior Pyro Member
Posts: 89
|
Post by smile on Jan 27, 2020 0:13:54 GMT -5
Thanks Grisom! |
|
|
|
Post by Grisom on Jan 27, 2020 10:25:11 GMT -5
Video should be here soon - just waiting for his associate to send it to us .
|
|
smile
Junior Pyro Member
Posts: 89
|
Post by smile on Feb 14, 2020 17:53:48 GMT -5
Any luck with the video? |
|
smile
Junior Pyro Member
Posts: 89
|
Post by smile on Mar 15, 2020 1:35:20 GMT -5
Got some great footage from an audience member! I know folks say that fireworks differ on camera but I can confirm what was captured on video was pretty much exactly what was we saw with our eyes. The Proud: Advertised: youtu.be/AqhnlK4samUMy Halloween shoot: vimeo.com/397732880Seismic Thunder (I was the most excited and the most disappointed by this one): Advertised: youtu.be/o_Ui2hLfPuwMy Halloween shoot: vimeo.com/397732964CDC 9494 (I fired off 2 at a time but you can still see the differences): Advertised: youtu.be/2KkPt3SfW58My Halloween shoot: vimeo.com/397733075If we can’t depend on the videos we see from the manufacturing then how are we to make informed decisions when buying these costly products? Again, to restate my point earlier, of course I expect some variance between the products—fireworks are a careful balance of chemistry. However, I think we can all agree that the videos shown here demonstrate more than just variances. |
|
smile
Junior Pyro Member
Posts: 89
|
Post by smile on Mar 20, 2020 22:36:37 GMT -5
Just going to casually bump my own thread post here... any thought on my post above?
|
|
|
|
Post by londonfan on Mar 21, 2020 11:23:30 GMT -5
I only have experience with The Proud.
I think that your Halloween shoot video doesn't look too bad.(about what I remember) It actually looks brighter than the advertised video straight from the Mystical sight.
The advertised one that you posted may have slightly longer hang time, but i usually attribute that to weather differences(humidity).
Otherwise, I like the fact that you are questioning, as I have seen some poorly represented videos. Crazy Ghost(stupid $$$), for example, has never looked as good when fired at my place as it does in the videos. I only ever buy it because everyone else watching seems to love it.
When I first started watching to plan, it seemed that a lot of videos were multiple cakes at the same time. Not so much anymore. It was confusing for a novice internet planning tool. I didn't think to actually count the breaks.
|
|
smile
Junior Pyro Member
Posts: 89
|
Post by smile on Mar 21, 2020 14:13:35 GMT -5
Thanks for your reply londonfan!
Agreed, I was happy with the break sizes and it did get the oohs and awes. I was just disappointed as I planned the show around what I saw in the videos. I was astonished to see those long hang times in the video and was genuinely excited to fire it off when I bought it.
I think the manufacturers can do better with their videos. I understand that they get videos from their factories but the cost of them doing their own shoots would be chump change in the grand scheme of things. Get a decent camera (the videos from my Halloween shoot used an iPhone 11) and fire off a single cake at a time–seems simple enough.
|
|
|
|
Post by bigtop on Mar 23, 2020 12:08:14 GMT -5
The links to your videos do not work so I can't have a second look. I had a look at the first 2 when you first posted. My take on the videos is
The Proud: pretty much the same except it was taken with a different camera and or settings and weather conditions.
Seismic Thunder: pretty much the same except taken with a different camera and or settings and 2 of the shots burst without lighting all the stars. This is not a sign of quality. But unless many were fired and all or many of them had loads that did not light all the stars this could just be normal. Fireworks are made by humans and humans do not perform perfectly all the time. Cake loads are manufactured in large numbers quickly and unless you are willing to pay exponentially higher prices for fireworks there will always be the occasional load or shell that does not perform properly.
Unless taken with the same camera at the same distance with the same settings in the same weather conditions 2 videos of the same firework will never look the same.
I get test videos of my fireworks before they are shipped out of China. The only things you can be sure of are did everything light properly, go high enough, burst big enough and did burning material fall too low or not.
Only the very best fireworks videos come close to showing the colors and spark effects accurately. For example have a look at videos on the internet and you will see many that only show red and silver. This is because of the camera not picking up the other colors.
A good example of this is the Windy Show video I posted recently. You can see mostly silver and red with a bit of washed out green. Purple only shows up a bit in the mines but there were plenty of purple bursts from the cakes. Even these colors you can see are washed out compared to the firework in real life. There was a plenty of blue, yellow, purple gold and green that was not seen at all.
As for spark effects. years ago I shot some silver serpent shells when the air was full of mist. I was so amazed by the solid silver molten streams that they produced I bought them again. When shot in air not full of mist they produced streams of scattered silver sparks.
|
|
smile
Junior Pyro Member
Posts: 89
|
Post by smile on Mar 23, 2020 14:03:32 GMT -5
Thanks bigtop.
Although I agree that there are a ton of variables when it comes recording fireworks, their construction and their chemistry, I still believe the manufacturer has a responsibility to represent their product in a fair manner. What I would define as fair is that if that if a product was shot 10 times, what would a consumer in Canada see 8 times out of 10.
That being said, I get we aren’t professionals and that most people don’t care as much. I just felt deceived after firing them and wanted to see if other folks have had similar experiences.
Following up to a few more points in your post above:
Colours—I get the notion that some colours show up better than others. I can attest that the colours in the video were very accurate. I think the most challenging thing to maintain for today’s camera setups are maintain focus throughout an entire shoot.
Videos—apparently I was reported for copyright infringement... I didn’t use any music so perhaps me showing a video of the product itself is not allowed?
Spark Effects—this was the biggest difference for me and was the primary reason I bought CDC-9494 and The Proud. I thought that solid streams of silver were amazing and was really looking forward to adding that effect to my show. Guess I know to watch out for videos that appear to be shot in high humidity!
|
|
|
|
Post by bigtop on Mar 23, 2020 16:35:35 GMT -5
I use a much higher quality camera than an I phone 11 and I still find variation in the videos so it is not just focus that affects the quality of the image. Fireworks are just a difficult subject to video accurately. Any automatic feature like image stabilization, color processing and other settings will likely change the image. There are guys at PGI that use huge full frame Zeiss 4K cameras hooked to a large monitor so they can see the images exactly in real time and they still don't always get the quality of video they want.
As for silver it is almost always shown as more and brighter than it really is.
I agree that videos should reasonably represent the products and I have seen videos that were way off from the product. The first 2 Mystical product videos do reasonably represent the products. You will do much better understanding the variations in videos and using that knowledge to make
a judgement as to the performance of the firework. You are not going to get videos that look exactly the same as what your video looks like.
As an example the video of the Competition Masterpiece referred to in another thread youtu.be/--4wOMXDcLY is probably a very good brocade cake that not many people buy because of the video. I look at it and my conclusion is the hang time shown by the silver sparks is 2 seconds, very good for a Canadian consumer cake. More than likely the gold of the brocade is not showing in the video. On that basis I will buy a case the next time I order from Mystical and try it out.
|
|
