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Taking great fireworks photos
Everybody loves fireworks. But they are hard to photograph. Even with the bright colorful light, the darkness of night presents a few challenges. With some planning and the right gear, you can have photos worth bragging about. |
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What you’ll need…
- A tripod. To photograph fireworks, the camera’s shutter has to be open for one second or longer. That means the camera can’t move at all or else the picture will be out of focus. A tripod keeps the camera perfectly still.
- A digital camera that has long shutter speeds. Shutter speed controls how long light is allowed into the camera. It is also known as “exposure.” The best fireworks pictures have an exposure time between 2 and10 seconds. If your camera doesn’t do that, try using the “nighttime” or “fireworks” features.
- A digital camera with a self-timer. This isn’t mandatory, but it sure helps. Using the self-timer to activate the shutter release means that you won’t accidentally shake the camera as you press down on the shutter.
Taking a good picture…
These tips can make a night of fireworks photography much more enjoyable:
- Low ISO is the way to go. The biggest enemy of fireworks photos is something called noise. It looks like tiny white or multi-colored dots when you print the picture. The longer the exposure, the more noise. If your camera lets you, pick the lowest ISO possible.
- Choose the right aperture. Aperture — also called F-stop — makes or breaks a photo. It decides how much light is let into the camera. Like Goldilocks in search of the perfect bed, there is one aperture that’s just right. If it’s too big (such as F-2.8) all the light streaks turn white. If it’s too small (F-11 or F-22) the fireworks are hard to see. Use the camera’s LCD screen as a guide. You might need a different F-stop at the beginning, middle or at the end of the fireworks show.
- Be mobile. Fireworks shows look different from every angle. Try to predict where the best photos will come from. Take pictures from there. When you think you’ve got the pictures you want, move to a new location.
- Bring spare batteries. Taking pictures of fireworks uses a lot of special features that gobble up batteries fast. Make sure you have an extra set of batteries so you can keep taking pictures.
- Use long exposure noise reduction. If your digital camera has a noise reduction feature, use it! But be careful. It doubles your camera’s exposure time. In other words, if you shoot a 10 second picture, you can’t take photo for at least 10 more seconds.
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