How to Shoot Fireworks Photography

Making a photograph of fireworks requires specific techniques.

Fireworks are a beautiful way to celebrate an occasion, and difficult to capture for many photographers. To capture the wonder of a fireworks display, you need to use particular shutter speeds and aperture settings, as well as a tripod and a wide angle and normal lens. Shoot with your digital SLR camera or your 35mm SLR.

Things You'll Need

• Digital or film camera
• Tripod
• Shutter cable release
• Wide angle or normal focal length lens

Instructions

1. Set your digital camera up on a tripod. Experiment with your wide angle (24-35 mm) or normal focal length lens (50-60 mm) to see which gives you the best panorama of the fireworks.

2. Set the camera's ISO/ASA to its lowest possible setting, either ISO/ASA 100 or lower. You will be making very long exposures, which can produce digital noise, so you want to limit the noise from ISO settings as much as possible.

3. Set the camera's lens to a mid-to-high-range f-stop, somewhere between f/8 and f/16.

4. Compose your scene by framing through the viewfinder and adjusting the camera on the tripod. You'll need to imagine where the fireworks will be, if you do not already know. Or adjust the camera in between shots to make sure you're getting an interesting composition of the fireworks explosion. Watch out for street lights, building or traffic lights in the foreground which may cause a flare in your image.

5. Set your camera's exposure setting to B for bulb. This keeps the shutter open for as long as you hold the shutter button. You may want to use a shutter release cable so that you don't jar the camera.

6. Press and hold the shutter for several seconds -- from right before the firework blast until right after it fades.

7. Check your image. Adjust the lens aperture based on the exposure of the image. Open the aperture (a lower f/stop) if your image is too dark.

8. Continue making photographs by holding the shutter button open for various exposure times. Note times so that you can evaluate exposures on your next shoot.

Tips & Warnings

• Use a remote shutter release, like a digital trigger or cable release, to avoid shaking the camera while holding the shutter button.

References

• Digital Photography School: How to Photograph Fireworks Displays
• Ken Rockwell: How to Photograph Fireworks