11 Easy Steps and Tricks to Photograph Fireworks

Fireworks photographs have a special charm. They might seem like “typical” photos, but the truth is that not everyone can take a good fireworks photo.

Taking such a photo is quite a challenge for the beginning photographer, as well as being a good way to train on the manual and semi-manual controls of our DSLR camera.

If you want get started in fireworks photography today’s article will give you some tips, tricks and tips to achieve this task. But if what you like is night photography in general, take note of this mega guide with tips, tricks and a lot of inspiration.

Necessary material for a good fireworks photo

• Stable tripod: Night photography (including fireworks) requires long exposure times, which would normally cause vibration and shaky photos. To avoid any possibility of vibration, a tripod is essential. If you are not going to use a tripod, you do not need to continue reading, everything else will be useless.
• Remote Switch: Even when using a tripod, the camera may experience micro-vibration due to the moment of shooting. Although we try to shoot subtly, something will always be noticed. To avoid this it is recommended to use a remote trigger. On the other hand, this small accessory will help us start and end the shot, prolonging it for as long as we want.
• Piece of black cardboard: or any element that serves to cover the objective during the time between one firework and another. We can even use the lens cap itself.
• a generous memory cardor two.
• Drums well loaded.

Steps to photograph fireworks

1. A successful fireworks photo starts with a good location. The perspective from which we are going to shoot will be key. We will have to ask ourselves certain questions well in advance: where do I get the best perspective? If I choose to shoot from a certain point, what background elements does that point offer me (mountains, buildings, etc.)? Getting to the location of the event in advance and trying to find out where the fireworks will be fired from could help us properly answer all these questions related to framing and composition.
2. Smoke is an inconvenience present at all fireworks shows. Keep this in mind and when planning the point from which you are going to shoot, try to position yourself in favor of the wind, so that the wind blows in the same direction in which you take the photo and not against it. In this way, if there was smoke, it would go further away and not obstruct the photo.
3. When the time comes, we will plant our tripod and prepare the settings of our camera as I describe in the next point.
4. The first step in preparing our camera is the choice of a suitable focal length. All lenses and all focal lengths can work, although it is true that since the path of fireworks is often unknown and quite unpredictable, it is recommended to use a small focal length. Something between 16mm and 24mm would work just fine and help us frame the firework and make the whole scene whole.
5. If your camera or lens carry image stabilizer turn it off. Image stabilizers slightly rob us of a bit of photo quality in exchange for stabilizing the image. Since we will be using a tripod and a remote release, we can do without the stabilizer.

6. turn off the flash. Its function is useless when we photograph distant things. If you see that it opens by itself, please disable it. Not only will it not help you, but it will also make your photos look worse.
7. Normally increasing the ISO value helps to get more light in low light situations. In our case we do not have this problem since we will take long exposure photos where we end up getting all the light without resorting to ISO. Therefore, almost mandatory advice: keep your ISO as low as you can, always around 100.
8. Select the Manual mode of your reflex camera. Yes yes, full manual. We have already tired of the automatic mode, and we have already experimented enough with the semi-manual modes. It’s time to work in full manual mode. Do not panic, in the following steps I will give you the exact guidelines that you have to follow. Remember that the manual mode is selected on the camera dial, with the symbol “M” on most cameras. The manual mode basically has two aspects that are the ones that we will adjust next: the opening of the diaphragm on one side and the rate of fire Secondly.

9. Select a setting from diaphragm opening between f/8 and f/18. Calculate approximately how long each firework lasts from its firing to its extinction. You can select that time as the shutter speed and leave it that way by default, so that every time you see a firework launch you release the shutter and wait for the camera to finish the shot in the time you have foreseen.
10. a much better way way to control the rate of fire is by the BULB function. This function allows us to freely and independently select when the shot starts and when it ends, all through our remote trigger, in this way we can start the shot and finish it ourselves as soon as the light is extinguished, thus not having to wait 5 or 10 seconds that otherwise we would have programmed. To use the BULB mode, my favorite, we will first set the shooting mode to “Remote Switch”, and then we will select a slow rate of fire, the slowest possible. When most cameras reach a speed of 30 seconds, they automatically show us the “BULB” indicator on the screen, which indicates that we are ready to press the shutter button when we want the recording or recording of the image to start and press it again when we want to finish the record.
11. If you want to record several fireworks in the same photo that take place over time, all you have to do is press the shutter and let the camera record a long sequence of fireworks for a minute or two. While doing this, using the lens cap, your hand or a piece of black cardboard you have to cover the lens during dead times, times when there is no firework.

Bonus track: Contrary to what many people think, the most beautiful thing about fireworks is not their colors, but rather the landscape in which they are produced. Keep this in mind and find a good location. you will succeed