How to get sharp fireworks images
It’s that time of year here in the States where we set things on fire so we can watch explosions and burning metal while losing our hearing. Yes, it’s time for some fireworks. Fireworks is a great time to practice your manual shooting skills. There is no single perfect formula for getting the photo, but there are a few guidelines I can offer.
Photo by Mark Schaffer
1) Use a tripod. Get in a spot that has a relatively clear view of the sky and make sure you set your tripod up as high as possible to insure you get above as many heads if you are in a crowd.
2) Use a wide angle lens. If you got something like an 18-55 that’ll work great. It doesn’t have to be extremely fast glass but you want a wide angle lens unless you are miles away from the display.
3) Manual, manual, manual. You have to do everything manual here. Manual focus. Don’t worry, you can just rotate the focus to infinity and that’ll work just fine. You’ll also have to set all other settings on your camera because the automatic settings are expecting a bright scene and you want yours to be mostly black.
4) Lock your ISO down to 100 or 200. These will give you the least noisy images on most cameras.
5) Shutter speed and aperture will be a balancing act depending on the look you are going for. If you want most everything in focus, you’ll need an aperture between f/8 and f/11. You really don’t want to go higher than f/11, because that’ll make your exposure really long. For me I think the exposure is more important than aperture, so I’d set my exposure 2 or 3 seconds and see what aperture is required to get the shot starting at f/11 and working down.
6) Use a wired or wireless shutter release. When you hear the mortar fire, press the shutter. The firework takes about half a second to detonate and then displays for about a second. If you go longer you get some really interesting streaky fireworks, which may not be what you want.
7) When you get to the end of the display, there will be a lot of fireworks all at once which will brighten the sky. Keep your exposure at whatever you had been shooting with the night and close your aperture beyond f/11 to f/16 or f/22. Hope this helps.
Photo by Mark Schaffer
For this post I’m displaying some photos of my friend Mark Schaffer. Take a look at his site at http://knowsphotos.com.
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I am a top photographer in the Mocksville, North Carolina Professional Photographers guide on MarketingTool.com.
To get good fireworks, follow Philip’s excellent tips…and don’t be afraid to shoot a lot. To get a couple of good fireworks shots, just because the timing and positioning of the shells going off will not be exact every time, you must shoot many frames. Vary the exposure from 1/2 second to several seconds – you will get different firework trails, multiple explosions and different colors. Check out the images while shooting and vary exposures until you are getting what you like. Most shows last 10-20 minutes so you will have plenty of time to experiment. Happy shooting and Happy Fourth of July.
Mark
My firework checklist:
1. Use a wide angle lens with a lens hood to eliminate ambient, low-angle light.
2. Mount camera on a tripod.
3. Manual focus (pre-focus before dark).
4. Use ISO 200.
5. (Start at) F5.6 and adjust as needed.
6. Turn off lens/image stabilization. (Nikon says the stabilization can actually cause blur when the camera is mounted on a tripod.)
7. Remove any lens filters. This removes one more reflective surface and eliminates much unnecessary flare.
8. Set the shutter for a one second delay to eliminate camera movement and a 4 second exposure.
9. Position yourself so any wind is a crosswind to blow the smoke out of the frame.
10. Hit the shutter release when you hear the launch explosion. One second later the shutter will open for 4 seconds.
11. After the burst, put a black, non-reflective card in front of the lens until the shutter closes.
I shot these (http://tinyurl.com/398w6cm) at 23mm (equiv to 34mm in 35mm), cropped in post production and boosted the black level to eliminate residual smoke.
Hope this helps someone.
Eric