Tips on photographing fireworks that pop

I recently went to the local county fair where I shot a number of photos of the fireworks display. They had an impressive show and I’d like to share some of it and how to take great fireworks photos yourself. Unfortunately, photos never can really give a real indication of not only the scope, but the feeling of a fireworks display.

How I did it

The first year I attempted to shoot fireworks I made a number of mistakes. The good thing about making those mistakes is that I learned how to do it better.
I think the most important thing is to use a tripod. Without using a tripod, you cannot hold the camera still enough for the length of exposures that are necessary. They end up streaking the fireworks and they simply don’t look good. When I first tried, I went without a tripod because I was too embarrassed to carry one through the fair. This is, quite frankly, silly. There is absolutely no reason to be embarrassed about taking your good equipment. It might even strike up some conversation and you can meet new people (and potentially customers!). So, mount your camera on a steady tripod so you can get real still shots. Use a tripod even if you are only using a point-and-shoot camera.

Second, get farther away. The first mistake I made that first year was to go into the stands where the majority of people sit. This place is so close to the fireworks that you not only have to strain your neck to look up, but you would need a very wide angle lens to get any of the blasts in frame. This year I was probably 250 yards or more away from the stands and I was not only able to fit most of the fireworks in frame with a 50mm lens (80mm effective on the Canon 40D due to sensor size) but I also was able to put some fair rides in frame as perspective. This gave the fireworks scale and reference, which creates a much better photograph.

Use a wider lens. I actually could have improved on this myself. I used a 50mm lens, which on a full frame (35mm) sensor probably would have been fine. But since my camera has a APS-C sized sensor it has a magnification, or crop factor of 1.6. This means that whatever length lens I used multiplies by 1.6. This is great if you want to get closer to something, but not so great to get a wide angle shot. I should have used my 28-80mm zoom lens set fully wide. Dumbly, I didn’t take this lens along because I thought I wanted the faster aperture of the 50mm. The 50mm has a f/1.8 and the 28-80mm has a f/3.5 as the fastest. For the fireworks it really didn’t matter because I ended up shooting at f/22 anyway. I did try take some animal pictures earlier but even with f/1.8 and 1000 ISO, it was still awfully dark. So that goes to show the difference in lens needs for different photography. In this case, for fireworks, I should have just gone with as wide as possible to fit more of the blasts in frame, particularly the higher stuff.

Use your bulb function with a remote shutter. In these shots I actually hadn’t brought my remote with, but I wish I had. Even if you are careful when you push down the shutter release button, you will move the camera slightly. The bulb function just holds the shutter open as long as you hold it down so that you can get more than one blast in the frame at once. This will further fill the picture and make the fireworks look that much more impressive. When the shutter is open this long the entire trail of the fire will show in the picture giving you the full effect of the blast. You may end up holding the shutter open for less time than others, it all depends on how the fireworks are blasting off and how many of those blasts you actually want in the picture.

Use a low ISO and a high aperture. This is mainly to compensate for your extremely long shutter times (mine went as long as 46 seconds). That way you won’t blow out the picture with any other lights, such as the ferris wheel in my case. I shot these pictures with an ISO of 100 and an aperture of f/22.

Anyone else have any tips to add or anything at all, please leave a comment below. Share a link to any of your own fireworks photos, I’d love to see them.

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© This article is copyright of Chris Lane Photo and should not be found elsewhere.

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Tags: aperture, bulb function, fair, fireworks, ISO, lens choice, long exposure, Minnesota, shutter, tripod, Warren
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