Ooh ooh, found the firework setting on the camera

After my dismal attempt at taking pictures at the Niigata firework festival, I thought I would give my newly discovered firework setting a try out. As you can seen the results were pretty good, but there again, so were the fireworks!

These were taken at the Katagai festival, about an hours drive south west of Niigata. This a special festival, Katagai is the town where they make fireworks, so it was always going to be a bit special. You know when you're at a display and at the end they send up a big one that's really loud? Well that's how this festival started.

So how do you end the ultimate firework display? With the largest firework in the world of course! This isn't the actual firework but its similar. It's over 40in in diameter and requires a huge mortar barrel to fire it. I think it costs in the region of £10,000 a pop, takes months to make and the resultant explosion is over 1km wide, when they work.

This is what it looked like.