Guide to perfect fireworks

Fireworks time is upon us. Soon the skies will be ablaze with those beautiful light shows which everyone wants to capture and admire for the rest of the year. The challenge for most is how to capture beautiful, stunning firework displays those that you can share on social media or show to your friends and family. While most people find fireworks photography challenging, and yes shooting fireworks is tricky business, with the right equipment, proper planning, and right camera settings, you too will be on your way to take spectacular fireworks images. Read on to learn how to take perfect fireworks pictures.

fireworks shot against New York city back drop — NEW YORK CITY

Equipment

The first thing you need to think about is the equipment. Even though your phone or point and shoot camera can take good images, in did some of these cameras even have a fireworks mode, what you are going to demand out of your camera to get images that will wow people, can best be achieved using SLR, DSLR or mirror less camera. These cameras are good because you can put them in full manual mode. Taking fireworks images is not a precise science it requires adjusting settings constantly, manual mode gives the option to manually tweak the settings. The other advantage of using an SLR camera is that you can change the lens, which is an advantage since you will probably be stationed on one location and hence the only option to have a different perspective is to change the lens.

camera on tripod with and external shutter trigger attached — They key to shooting fireworks is using proper equipment

Apart from the camera, you will also need a good sturdy tripod and a wired or wireless shutter release. The tripod will help to keep the camera sturdy since the shutter speeds you will be using will be slow to hand hold the camera without introducing camera shake. Camera shake is also the reason why you need to use an external shutter release. The idea here is to keep the camera as still as possible just before and after opening the shutter.

Planning and composition

Once you have your camera, tripod, and external shutter release, the second thing you need to do is to plan. This involves scouting the area where the fireworks display will be held where they are going to shoot the fireworks from and also where you think the fireworks will explode in the sky. On the day of the shows get to the location early so you can calm that advantageous spot you found otherwise you may find some other photographer already on your spot.

Now that you have secured your position its time to plan your composition. When planning composition, consider the background and the foreground. Taking pictures of fireworks against a dark blue sky can be unexciting. Instead, shot the fireworks with a background such as a cityscape to add context and drama to the image. If this is not possible or the background is not very interesting, try to include something interesting in the foreground spectators usually are the right choice, but objects do work as well.

Crowd wathcing fireworks and celebrating

Settings

Here comes the technical aspect of shooting fireworks. It is difficult to give a set of setting to dial in because setting depends on available light. This is truer when it comes to fireworks photography. Here we will just point you in the direction that you should go but the actual values you will use will depend on the conditions you are in and your artistic vision.

The most important setting to consider is shutter speed. Since fireworks are moving objects, to capture that motion, your shutter has to stay open for the duration of the movement from the initial release of the firework up until the blast. Your shutter speed, therefore, should at least be in the 10-sec range or lower so you can capture a smooth light streak line leading to the blast. Timing, when to open and close the shutter, is critical. It is difficult to accurately sync the shutter time to the duration of the fireworks when you set your shutter speed to a specific time. But there is a way to accurately sync your shoots.

There is a trick involving bulb mode and a black card that will help you to time fireworks to perfection. The bulb mode in your camera opens the shutter and keeps it open until you press the button to close it. To use the trick set your camera’s shutter to bulb mode and block the lens without touching it with a black card. Once the fireworks are released, remove the card in front of the lens to start capturing the fireworks up until the big pop at which point you press the shutter button again to close it.

other things to consider

Finally, to get a clean noise free image set your camera to the lowest possible ISO. Noise, those grains in the mage is usually the result of using high ISO. The problem is prevalent in shadows areas when brightening the image in post-production. Using low ISO will, therefore, gives you the leeway to adjust the exposure in post-production without introducing too much noise.

The other important setting to consider is to put the camera is full manual mode. In this mode, the three-exposure variable setting, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO are up to the photographer to dial in. This is important because your exposure has to be set before you capture the firework. Your chance to adjust exposer is only by looking at the picture you have taken before. Depending on how good your camera focusing system is in low light, you may also have to set your focus manually.

Enjoy shooting fireworks