nice pics....i didnt go this year....im deathly afraid of the after crowds and waiting to get home via skytrain...haha
there are less and less people watching the fireworks for the last couple of years...waiting in line isn't long...while i always leave at 11pm, i would be home around 12:30pm...if you run back to the skytrain right at the end, u can beat the crowd and get on the train at Burrard Station
the general rule of thumb is to have the camera placed on a steady area (surface, tripod etc) when the light-waves actually flickers so that's why u can blurry pictures, flash won't do any good at night thou (only if you want to capture the object in front that has no light), if you are taking photos of a building, the flash won't do much as each flash as a range limit, you have to get an idea how far the object is, if the object is too far the flash will not reach, so is basically pointless