Photographing Fireworks like a Pro

by Caroline Ulbrich

2010-05-11 13:05:04

As the 4th of July nears, all around you will see bursts of fireworks displayed on everything. Advertisements, packaging, decorations - they all make use of the beautiful shapes and colors that fireworks create. If you’ve ever tried to take pictures of fireworks before you may have found that getting those vibrant colors and rich light trails is not all that easy. It requires precise timing and a familiarity with camera functions. Follow these simple tips to photographing fireworks and this year you’ll come away with stunning shots that will make incredible art for your home or office.

Before you get started you’ll need to determine the location you need to be to get the best shot. If you know where the fireworks will be displayed in your city, spend a few hours in the previous days scouting for just the right angle. You may want to capture an iconic building or the city skyline in the photo. Reflections on water would also make for a beautiful fireworks shot. There may be a rooftop with just the right view, but if you are on private property not designed for watching fireworks pay attention to any rules about loitering or even restrictions on photography there.

A problem with photographing fireworks is always the smoke. You may have to adjust your location so that you are upwind of the display, otherwise a big hazy cloud will ruin the subsequent shots once the show begins.

Once you know where you will shoot from, you need to get all your equipment prepared. A tripod is a requirement to get those beautiful light trails as the firework explodes. Review the settings on your camera and see what options you have. Number one, check the resolution. Make sure you are shooting at the maximum resolution and saving at the highest quality level that your camera is capable of. Just because the camera is 10MP doesn’t mean that the menu has it set to take 10MP pictures, so double check. You want good files so you can enlarge these amazing photos you are about to take. For saving, select “fine” or “superfine” for the quality level so that it does not compress the image too much.

Some point and shoot cameras have a “fireworks” setting on them. You may want to do a few test shots on that setting and see how it works for you; each camera will be different. If you are happy with the results then keep at it! The beauty of digital photography is that we can keep shooting and sort through to find the best ones later. Just keep in mind that since you are at the highest resolution setting you will fill up a memory card faster so be sure you have a high capacity card or a couple of spares.

If you don’t have a fireworks mode or you aren’t happy with the results, here are a few settings to review.

• ISO: Since these exposures can be a little longer digital cameras tend to show a lot of noise and if you want a smooth, solid black background you want to avoid this. Set the ISO of your camera to low and this will help reduce the amount of noise in the image.
• Focus: Set the camera focus to infinity and turn the autofocus off. Otherwise it may start searching for something in the dark and you will miss your shot. If you are working with a building in the shot you may be able to set your focus on it and keep it there.
• Flash: Make sure the flash is set to OFF.
• Shutter Speed: A slow shutter speed is what will give you those long lines that trail down from each burst. The longer you can set it for the better; you can even get multiple bursts in one shot. Start with a shutter speed of one second and see how the pictures turn out, you can adjust it to be faster or slower to get the look you want.
• Aperture: The shutter speed is a higher priority in fireworks photography, but if your camera allows for a fully manual setting where you can adjust the shutter speed and aperture you will want to use that. Set the aperture to f/8 to start. If the background is too light and you are happy with the shutter speed then take that up to f/16 or even more until you get the black sky you want. If it is looking too dark, bring it down to f/5.6 or more and just keep going until you find a good balance that works with your shutter speed.

When taking the photo, even though you are on a tripod, pushing the button can cause some camera shake, which will give you a blurry image. Gently push the button down and don’t grip the entire camera, let the tripod do the work and touch the camera as little as possible. If you are using a DSLR you can use a shutter release cable for extra stability.

You also need to anticipate the shot. As you see the light racing up in the sky there is that moment when it disappears just before the explosion. Hit the button right at that moment to make sure you get it. If your camera takes a moment to shoot the picture after you push the button just make sure to allow for that time.

The nice thing about fireworks shows is they usually go on for a while and the first few explosions aren’t that impressive. You can experiment on those and get your settings down so when the real magic happens you know exactly what to do.

After all is said and done you get to download the photos to your computer and see how they turned out! You’ll likely find that you have dozens of great shots and you’ll have a terrible time picking out just a few favorites. You may want to do some editing on the computer. You can crop to adjust the focus of the image to just the fireworks by framing out the explosion and removing the excess black. Be careful when cropping though to make sure you don’t go too small and loose most of the resolution. Fireworks look vibrant and beautiful on canvas and are the perfect subject for the contemporary looking gallery wrap. Take that into consideration when cropping and leave a little extra room to wrap on the sides.

Some other minor adjustments you can do on the computer are to increase the contrast so the sky completely blacks out and that will also remove some of the haze around the fireworks. You can also bump up the saturation some so the colors are even more vibrant. Now you may think I’m crazy but you can even try black and white with a lot of contrast so you see these interesting white lines on a pure black background and this will make for very modern art that will go well with whatever color scheme you may currently have in the room you plan to decorate.

Make sure to save as a copy so you don’t lose your original and always at the maximum quality level. Never resample the image when sizing as you can force the pixels up or down and mess with the resolution. Then send your fantastic fireworks shot to Canvas Press to make a large canvas print of it and enjoy your personalized artwork that will make this year’s 4th of July one to remember forever.