Taking Pictures of Fireworks

If you have a digital camera purchased within the last 3 years or so, it may come with a fireworks scene setting. This will allow you to capture the essence of the fireworks explosion with very little effort.

You might be thinking, is it that easy?

Actually that is only one aspect of the shot you need to consider. One important consideration is getting the right timing because you want to capture the explosion which occurs over time like 2 - 4 seconds. Since you are forced to use a long shutter exposure, you need to take into account issues that can ruin a great fireworks shot.

1: Camera must be perfectly still to avoid blurring. This can be achieved by using a tripod with a good locking mechanism for all moving parts.

2: Use the automated timer if possible with the tripod to avoid your shutter button depression shaking the camera.

3: Street lights and building lights will be over exposed therefore avoid including them whenever possible.

4: Shutter speed being too short thus you lose the full impact of the fireworks.

5: Avoid being too close to the location of the fireworks. If you are too close, you are forced to look higher up to capture the fireworks. This means that there are no objects for the camera to focus on before the firework appears in the frame. You can have a great image if you are far enough away that the firworks can be taken at a 30 - 45 degree angle. This will allow distant objects to be included in the shot that can be focused on as a distant object. Focusing in an object that is considered a near object will cause the fireworks to be out of focus.

The best situation is to be where the fireworks are taking place over water. This will allow you to take the fireworks and the reflection off the water at the same time. Since the area before the explosion should be dark or almost dark, that you can easily trigger the shutter before the explosion and close after the explosion. This means a shutter setting of 4 - 7 seconds. You will need to change the cameras settings manually instead of relying on the fireworks settings.

When setting the shutter speed manually, make sure you also adjust the ISO setting and select 400 which is the normal night setting. You can always play around with this and use a slightly higher or lower setting also. This adjustment can also work well when using the fireworks scene setting on some cameras. Play around with different ISO settings between 200 - 600 to get the right level of brightness and color.