Photographing Fireworks

[maulin]

As you all know July 4th is coming, can you please share some tips regarding taking photographs of the fireworks? I have never tried before. thanks.

[Nicole]

A great place to start is with the tutorial on the blog: How to Photograph Fireworks Displays

Then there are all sorts of other posts in the forum about it too:

• Shooting Fireworks, any advice?
• Fireworks Photography
• Clarification on Fireworks photos

The main things to take away from it though are:

1. A remote is a godsend so that you don't get shaky photos
2. Using bulb mode and opening the shutter when you hear the soft boom of the firework being shot is a good way to time things
3. Experiment with different apertures / WB / shutter speed to get the right settings for your location (e.g. I notice my settings are different at the midwinter carnival compared to the Guy Fawkes day fireworks because of the difference in ambient light and the distance).

[maulin]

thanks a lot nicole.

what can i experiment with WB?

[Nicole]

Well, I've found that cooler WBs tend to bring out the blues and greens in the fireworks more, whereas if I leave it on auto the colours tend to be warmer and I often lose those colours. So it mainly depends on the colours of the fireworks they're shooting off. The easiest way to play with it though is to shoot in RAW and adjust it later in this case, simply because of the speed of things.