Photographing Fireworks

[Steve Randles]

Its getting to that time of the year again, the time your neighbourhood turns into a warzone after dark with loud bangs fizzles and whizz's. Love them or hate them its firework season and an oppurtunity for the photographer to capture something different. Here's a guide to photographing fireworks based on my own experiences of the past few years.

 

4 Seconds

F10

ISO 100

 

 

Firework displays are probably the best place to photograph them as they will all be concentrated into one area, for a set ammount of time, but dont just turn up ten minutes before they start or you will miss out on a number of things - read on.

 

Get to the display at least an hour before the display is set to start and preferably in daylight, walk around the area and find yourself a good pitch to set up in. Check that nothing will obstruct your shots for example trees and lamposts, its also worth checking your background of the shots to see if later when its dark there are any lights that might affect your shots.

 

Take a brightly coloured bag with you, a flask of tea or coffee, a bite to eat and an extra layer of clothing (it gets cold hanging around waiting for the display)..the bag can be seen by other people in the crowd and when you put it in front of your tripod it stops people standing that close to it, helping you to get clearer pictures of the fireworks with no head shots in the way

 

Set your tripod up (if you have one) and extend it fully including the crank central collumn, this should give you maximum head clearance for your shots. Set your bag down in front of it!

 

 

8 Seconds

F10

ISO 100

 

 

CAMERA and SETTINGS

 

Set ISO to 100, its chemical light, brightest of the bright so 50 would be even better if you have that option, set your aperture to between F8-F11 for 100 ISO or F5.6-F8 for 50 ISO.

 

Set focus to infinity or do one of the following if you dont have an infinity setting.

1. Foucs on an object thats roughly the same distance from you as the fireworks will be.

2. Focus on the first burst of fireworks as the display starts.

 

Then TURN AUTOFOCUS OFF, autofocus will confuse the hell out of your camera as it attempts to focus on appearing and dissappearing brightly coloured flashes.

 

Exposure times can vary from the very quick to upto 4-5 seconds, the group cluster below was 2 seconds and was the finale to a display

 

2 Seconds

F10

ISO 100

 

 

OPTIONAL EXTRAS

 

Tripod

 

You dont need one but a tripod will help get some creative shots. Longer exposures require the tripod, but you can quite happily snap at firework bursts just hand holding your camera. You can do both short and long exposures with a tripod

 

Cable or remote release.

 

Will allow you to actually view the display itself and help you time when you open the shutter, if you look closely you will see the dim red glow (in comparison to the fireworks itself) of the firework as its launched skywards.

 

Small torch

 

To help you check/change camera settings, batteries or cards.

 

 

 

For those who have full manual control and "bulb" setting you can capture mutiple bursts in one frame by opening the shutter as one firework bursts and either covering the lens with the lens cap or using a black cloth you can cover/uncover as required, taking care not to knock your camera.

 

Shutter Lag

 

For some point and shoot cameras shutter lag is a problem, shutter lag is the time it takes the camera to open the shutter and take the picture from when you pressed the button. To make yourself aware of your shutter lag first look at your manual to see whats written there. Then do a couple of test shots of moving objects. Photograph a car remembering where in the scene it was, then look at the LCD display and see where the car actually was to guage where you need to press the button to get the shot you want.

 

Each and every camera is different, will have different modes and capabilities but hopefully you can at least get a starting point from this and remember this is just my take on things.

 

Steve...

[Guest Ferret1959]

A nice shot can be taken from any high ground.

Look over a town or city and take a landscape picture.

 

Looks good with all the rockets exploding in the air.

[poledark]

Thanks Steve

 

Den

[medwaygreen]

Good post Steve,Thanks

Edited September 29, 2006 by medwaygreen

[Snatcher]

Thanks Steve,my Canon will be going into "firework" mode that night Have not got a stand though so it will be a hand held job. Lets see if we get any decent shots.

 

How about that for an extra comp Steve. Just a thought

[Steve Randles]

Just bumping this back onto page 1 in cas anyone is planning on going to a display.

 

Steve...

[Goldblend]

Excellent post Steve!! as a pure novice that was a really handy and fortunately extremely good idiots guide to capturing the fire works. Cheers!

[Snatcher]

Will have a shot Steve. How about a mini comp?

[Newt]

Snatcher - you really should consider getting a tripod. Not sure about UK prices but we can get a good one (light weight, easy to set up, folds up very small, etc.) for about $20.

 

We don't use it often but when you need one, you really need one and at those prices, they are very worth having. If nothing else, you can use it to take photos of yourself holding your fish by using a time delay setting on your camera. 20 seconds should be plenty.

[peter mccue]

Good post Steve, I'll be there early on the 5th to try my luck.

 

Snatcher, just to echo Newts post. I bought a Star 42 tripod at I think Asda for £22 in the Summer.

 

Seems to have done the job admirably so far.