Tips for Firework Photography

Greetings, fellow Steemians!

Across the USA, there will be many fireworks displays tomorrow evening and many will take their cameras along. Like sunset photos, fireworks images tend to come off a bit as a cliche. So! If you are going to be one of those out for fireworks photos, I recommend looking for some alternative images to the standards. Here is an example:

image source: my flickr page

Full disclosure: This image is actually taken in Torre Blascopedro, Jaén, Spain. The tiny village was celebrating the start of its fair. The town of Jabalquinto can be seen in the distance as a vertical row of bokeh balls.

Both Canon and Nikon have 50mm wide-aperture lenses available at a relatively low price point. This was taken with an out-dated version of Canon's 50mm f/1.4. The less expensive f/1.8 version runs $125 and is sharper and faster to focus.

Tips

If you do want to go for more traditional fireworks images, here are some suggestions to help you get the shots:

• Bring a tripod. If you don't hve one, there are cheap alternatives. A bag of rice or sand will do the trick, in a pinch!
• Use the bulb (B) setting, or longer shutter speeds (several seconds) to capture the light trails of illuminated sparks.
• Lock your camera on a section of the sky where the majority of the blasts seem to be happening. Trying to adjust to every individual burst is more trouble than it's worth.
• If you have a remote shutter release, use it. Camera shake will destroy your images.
• For light trail shots, you'll be shooting around f/11. Faster lenses have more artistic potential, but almost any lens will work.
• Unless you're going to be very close, a telephoto lens will be much more useful to you.

Exposure Settings

You will likely have to adjust, depending on your proximity to the fireworks, ambient light, and other factors. As a starting point, however, I would suggest these settings:

• ISO 100
• f / 10
• Bulb shutter or anywhere from two to twenty seconds exposure time, depending on how much firework action there is.

Examples

These two examples are from fireworks in Rochester, MN. They were taken with a tripod from the top of a parking garage. The first is one of those cliche firework shots:

The next shot is a much more interesting composition and the exposure time captures a lot of action.

*ISO 100, f/11, 5 sec. exposure, @ 210mm.

Good luck and happy shooting!