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English Language Teaching and Learning

How to take photos: Fireworks

Basic gear you need:

• Tripod, remote shutter release (or on-board timer), and a fireworks show

The Aim:

• To show lines from the explosions

How:

• Set up: Set up your camera on a tripod and attach the remote release. Also see this picture from the Sunrise page: Tripod set up.
• Shutter speed: Set to 'Bulb' (where the shutter stays open for as long as you've got your thumb on the remote button), and count to any number between seven - eleven. Or, use your timer, and guess a number of seconds between seven and eleven. However, you need to adjust according to the show.
• Shutter speed Alternative: Set the timer to the minimum, like 2 seconds, and the shutter speed to somewhere between five to 12 seconds. I think each fireworks making company produces different kinds of fireworks, some that stay glowing in the air longer, others make cool patterns and things. So, you'll be needing to experiment and adjust your timer.
• ISO: Best to use iso100 to have as little noise as possible.
• Aperture: Set it to about f14. After taking a sample photo, check your cameras preview screen to see if you got a clear result. If it's hard to see, then step to f13, or f9; but not much lower.
• White Balance: Be sure your white balance is set for night
• Lenses: I prefer to use a zoom lens: Konica-Minolta 75-300mm lens pointed and manually focused to where the previous works exploded or manually focused to infinity (don't use auto focus).
• Advice: It might be best not to be right under the fireworks or close to the show, not just for obvious reasons, but also being a little farther back, your pictures would appear flatter and less distorted, as if they were taken at the same height as the explosions. If you can, getting a reflection over water would be awesome.
• Quality problems: Be sure there's no distractions, or unnecessary junk in the foreground like powerlines or rooftops or the tops of people's heads.

Examples:

Click on these to view them at a larger size

	< F14, 7sec, iso100; 75-300mm lens at 75mm. This one was 'cleaned up' in Photoshop.
	< F14, 11sec, iso100; 75-300mm lens at 140mm. Not cleaned up, but notice the smoke