After I read a list of tips about shooting fireworks and how to shoot fireworks in the fremiranda.com forums (My favorite forums site).I decided to put my list some pf the points in that list written corockett (username) .SO here are the tips I have to give you.
Bey the way I have to menttion that the tips you’ll read here are good for any long exposure night photography and will do great if you are shooting lightning during a stormi night.
It’s really quite easy and it sounds like you have it down.
The key 10 tips for shooting great looking fireworks:
- Tripod-as you are going to get long exposures you should have the best tripod you can get.
- Shutter Release-to prevent any camera shakes while you press the shutter release.If you don’t have one go for the timer option in your camera.
- Bulb Mode – you’ll want to expose as long as the fireworks occur.
- Manual
- Small Apertures – will allow you to get this long exposure right.
- Turn of your camera flash-so it won’t confuse you camera exposure and WB settings.
- Try to find the best location-some of the best fireworks are taken when there is some water reflection in the frame (lake,see ect.) you could make it interesting by shooting fireworks while they reflect on a big building’s windows.
- Come early and test the exposure-This will get you ready and not guessing when the real thing will come.Start from here ISO 100 Bulb f11 and change the exposure as you go on.
- Fill up your batteries as long exposure on digital cameras will quickly bring that annoying blinking battery icon in your camera screen.
- Low ISO will make your pictures more noise free.Try to go for 50-100 if possible.
The hard part is framing. Don’t think you need all that “L” glass, take what you have to cover a nice range. I’m taking my 11-16, 17-55 and 70 – 200 to cover anything that comes my way. The 70-200 is probably totally unnecessary. But just about any glass will do because you aren’t going to need tack sharp perfect images, even if you eventually print the shot large.
I think the shots where you see some of the landscape make better shots; i.e. bridges, flags, cityscape, etc.
When you here the “thud” of the firework leaving the launcher, hit the release and hold it down until the firework completes (about 4-5 seconds) counting one one thousand, etc. Chimp and ride your aperture up or down until your exposing nicely. Once you have aperture set. Then you just repeat:
Press shutter on rocket release.
Release shutter on completion of firework expansion.
The biggest surprise for most is they think they need to be at some wide aperture. f8 to f16 has always worked best for me.
