4th of July is almost here. Every time we go to a big fireworks display I see people trying to capture great photos of them, but they often end up scratching their heads when they look back at the images because they don’t seem to be quite as breathtaking as the real deal. Here are some tips to help you get great photos that will make everyone who views them ooooh and ahhhhh.
1) USE YOUR DSLR. Remember that big, expensive camera that you bought because you wanted to get amazing photos of your memories but now it’s sitting under an inch of dust because you never really had the time to learn how to use it or because it’s so big and it’s easier just to take photos with your phone? Now is a great time to take some baby steps and start learning how to use it to it’s full potential.
2) USE A TRIPOD….and a remote trigger if possible. Your camera will have to be extremely steady to get nice, crisp shots so a tripod will eliminate a shaky hand. Even pressing the shutter button can jiggle the camera enough to cause blur so a shutter remote is very helpful as well.
3) CHANGE YOUR SETTING TO “MANUAL”. Yes, it’s time to stop letting your camera decide what you are photographing and what your images should look like and time for you to take charge (which is what your DSLR was designed for if you are going to take advantage of it’s full potential anyway). Speaking of “manual”, now might be a good time to find the owner’s manual for your camera so you can learn how to adjust some of the settings if you don’t already know how. Specifically, ISO, shutter speed, and aperture.
4) TURN OFF YOUR FLASH. Yes, I understand that it is dark out and you are taking photos but the fireworks are not dark, they are bright enough on their own AND your flash is not going to reach all the way up into the sky to light it up any more than it already is anyway. You are only lighting up (and annoying) your fellow spectators.
5) ISO. This setting measures how sensitive your camera’s sensor is to light. The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive. Again, although it is dark out, the fireworks that you are photographing are bright so an ISO of 100 should work just fine.
6) SHUTTER SPEED. When photographing fireworks, you don’t just want to capture a quick second, you want to get the action of the color and light streaming upward and outward so you want a long exposure time. You might need to experiment with this to get it just right with your other settings but usually somewhere between 1-10 seconds is best.
7) APERTURE. There is a lot more to learn when it comes to learning aperture, but for this purpose we aren’t going to go into all of that. I would usually set your aperture around f/8-f/16.
8) FOCUS. This part can be tricky. It’s hard to tell your camera to focus on something that isn’t there yet so what I usually do is keep my camera on automatic focus, wait for a firework and then look through the camera and focus on the firework by pressing the shutter half-way down (but don’t actually photograph it). Then I set the lens to manual focus so that it will stay at that setting instead of searching for something to focus on every time I press the shutter like it would do in auto focus.
Nothing is set in stone, so if you aren’t getting the result you want, play around with the settings a little and most importantly have a fun and safe 4th of July!
Here are some of my favorite firework shots from 5 years ago (and my favorite people 5 years ago too).
