blog post: photographing fireworks

 “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”  —  George Carlin

We’ve a holiday approaching. Holidays traditionally mean that we’ll be spending time relaxing and having fun with family, or friends that have become family. It’s a perfect time to get out the camera to practice photographing the people, places and things we love.

One of the things people love and long to photograph for themselves are fireworks – they can often-times take our breath away.

Photographing fireworks is really not that difficult to do, but there are a few things you need to prepare for that will ensure some success for yourself. Below are Zen Photography S|W|R’s Mini-Free Photo Workshop with tips and suggestions for those of you who own a DSLR camera and want to try your hand at photographing fireworks.  To forewarn you, this post is rather long, but I saw no other way to present the detailed information – enjoy.

Zen Photography S|W|R Top 11 Tips for Successfully Photographing Fireworks:

1. Vantage Point: scout the location for the fireworks before you set up so you are confident that your position will produce a pleasing composition. And, because you won’t have a lot of time to change your actual position once you are shooting, consider:

a. The direction that the wind blows because you’ll want to have the fireworks between you and the smoke they produce to keep the shots as clear as they can be. Your position should be camera – fireworks – smoke.

b. Your position should also allow for a view of the sky that is as unobstructed as possible.

c. Do include people, landmarks or other interesting skyline features in your composition and do consider producing silhouettes.

d. Pay attention to your horizon line and framing: fireworks are a great example of the rule of thirds in action (section your viewing frame into three equal horizontal and three equal vertical sections, then keep your subject out of the middle of the frame!); keep your horizon line level and low.

e. Decide if you want to shoot vertically, which is a lovely format to focus more on the fireworks as they reach high into the sky, and if you have either accurate positioning that allows for vertical shots, or a zoom lens that can get you positioned for highlighting the fireworks alone – or, horizontally, if you are going for dramatic landscapes to accompany the fireworks display.

f. Remember that initially, once the fireworks begin, you will need to adjust your composition, depending on their positioning in the sky. This can be tricky, so be prepared for making this adjustment at the start.

2. The most important piece of equipment you’ll need is a tripod; it is critical for keeping your DSLR camera stable, for keeping your horizon line level and in adjusting composition and framing.

3. Other suggested equipment:

a. A lens that allows for a wide-angle view (a minimum of 28mm, but it’s ok if you only have a 50mm – you’ll just have to be careful of your positioning with a lens that does not have a wide angle of view).

b. A minimum f/stop of f/5.6 (you will finally be able to use the lens that came in the kit when you purchased your camera with some success!). More on this in settings below.

4. Shoot your camera in M – Manual mode and put your lens on M – Manual focus.

5. No flash is necessary; be sure to turn your flash off.

6. Have a flashlight so you can see as you initially set up and adjust your camera settings.

7. Use the self-timer feature on your camera to reduce vibration and any possible camera shake when tripping the shutter button, especially if you don’t have a remote shutter release. If you have a remote shutter release, use it; it’s most helpful in this situation.

8. ISO setting should be at 100 or lower. ISOs higher than 400 produce digital noise in any photograph. However, if you have an automatic noise reduction setting in your camera, now is the time to find it, turn it on and keep it on; a little extra noise reduction can never be bad.

9. Focusing: manually set your focus to infinity (the ∞ symbol on the distance scale on the lens), then back it up to just a bit so the focus index line is set just before the infinity symbol; trust me on this tip!

10. Bring multiple memory cards and extra camera batteries and take a LOT of photographs. In this instance, where you are dealing with some unpredictable things such as timing (unless you have that remote shutter release), the many photographs you will take will likely produce a few great images. This is the time to experiment and have fun, not worry about getting things perfectly perfect, so come equipped to shoot to decrease any disappointment or frustrations.

11. Have fun and experiment as much as you can! If you have time, try other settings just to compare results from those I’ve suggested.

Zen Photography S|W|R Top 8 Setting Suggestions for Photographing Fireworks:

1. Tripod, DSLR camera level on the tripod and rule of thirds in play, whether you are shooting vertically or horizontally.

2. Camera Settings: set to M – Manual.

3. ISO: 100 – you are photographing very bright subjects that will light up the sky and buildings all around you, so a low ISO is critical to capture the details in the shots.

4. Lens: 24mm, or 28mm fixed lens, or a Zoom lens that is a 24mm-to-70mm, or 18mm-to-135mm (typical kit lens) – a wider angle lens is a subjective choice.

5. Lens Focus: set the focus control to Manual then manually move the focus ring to align the lens focus index line to just slightly in front of the Infinity symbol on the camera’s scale.

6. f/stop: f/8 or f/11 regardless of your lens. We’ve had great success at f/8 with our 24mm lens.

7. Shutter Speed: the shutter speed is the next most important consideration after your Tripod and Vantage Point and you must have your camera on the Manual setting to photograph so you can control your camera settings and shutter speed fully. I cannot tell you what your shutter speed will be exactly, but I can tell you that it will likely be somewhere between 1 second and 6 seconds, and could even fall at .5 (a half of a second) and may even go up to 10 seconds, depending on how bright the fireworks display, the setting, weather, smoke, etc. a great place to begin photographing will be around 2.5 seconds and make your adjustments for either more exposure (slower shutter speeds) or less exposure (faster shutter speeds) from there.

8. B – the Bulb Setting is used on occasion when you want to create one image with multiple fireworks bursts: on B the focal plane shutter stays open until you decide to close it. A tricky and quick way to close and open it is to use a 8×10 piece of black cardboard or foamcore, holding it against the front of the lens as the focal plane shutter remains open then quickly removing it to capture multiple bursts on the one “frame,” but this may lead to moving your camera out of position if not done gently and carefully.

There; no more how to photograph fireworks secrets or fears. All this takes is a willingness to create, enough excitement to motivate you to get out there to shoot, and patience with yourself and the outcome as you learn how to do this on your own.

Enjoy your holiday, your family and friends, and those fireworks! Please feel free to comment here on the blog on your successes or any frustrations, and please feel free to post some of the images you created at our Zen Photography Safaris | Workshops | Retreats FaceBook page – we’d LOVE to see your results.  Enjoy Independence Day fully.

Namaste, Team Zen | Joanne Bartone

ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE:

Canon EOS 7D  |  Canon 24 – 70mm L f/2.8 @ 24mm  |  ISO: 100 |  f/8  | 0.6 sec |  Pittsburgh, PA  | Image refined cropped, minimally processed + enhanced in PS5