How to Photograph Fireworks Displays
Every year around the 4th of July I get the question how do you shot images from the great national holiday that look rich and capture part of the experience? It looks so hard it must be next to impossible to do right?
Well with a little bit of knowledge and some basic equipment, and essentials, you can capture these moments using your digital camera allowing you to keep these moments for posterity. So even if you’ve never tried photographing fireworks displays, it’s relatively easy to do using the information presented below.
4th of July Taste of Minnesota How to photograph fireworks displays
Equipment & Essentials
You will need a tripod and a cable release for your camera or if you do not have a cable release, you can you the auto timer function set to like two seconds. These can be fairly inexpensive pieces if you don’t already have one or both but the tripod especially is critical it fact it is what makes these pictures possible.
Do your pre-work.
It is very important that you really know the setup of the fireworks display so that you can place yourself in the right spot to capture the best shots. So first find the best fireworks display in your area and learn everything about it. Look at online maps; call the committee responsible for hosting the fireworks; talk to the local police so you know of security issues and traffic flow issues; arrive early so you get the spot you want and talk to other photographers and people who look like they know what they are doing at the site. By knowing how close you will be to the actual display, you’ll have a lot better knowledge of which lens and starting focal length you’ll need to capture as much fireworks action as possible. It goes without saying that you want to build in set-up time to your shoot.
When possible, be sure to place something static in the frame for a point of reference to Earth. Trees, architecture, a background landscape feature, anything to add to the composition of the shot. Set up at late dusk so your eyes can see the landscape features.
If you have the knowledge and skill, I recommend that you shoot in Full Manual Mode but starting with Auto Focus [AF] on the lens. For the first one or two fireworks, use the camera to set your focus using AF. Look at your image display and check the sharpness and focus. If good, quickly but carefully set the lens to Manual Focus [MF] so it doesn’t keep attempting to re-focus throughout the show. In general our depth of field will be quite deep so focus will not be a huge issue because almost everything will be in focus with an F11 or more f-stop setting.
Throughout the evening check your focus again just to make sure it is staying well focused.
For the camera set up start with the following:
• Tripod – Let me repoat again, the tripod is what makes this entire shot possible. If you do not have one, get one are borrow one. If you don’t use one, you will be frustrated.
• Lens – Start with a relatively wide lens [18-55mm] set somewhere between 18-35mm. The lens and focal length will be highly dependent on how close or far your photographic location is from the fireworks launch site. If you’re too close, you may need a smaller lower focal range. The converse is true. The important part is that your focal length will be the controlling parameter for how much or how little of the fireworks display fills your framed shot at your relatively fixed location. The last thing you’ll want to do is pick up and move once the fireworks show begins!
• Apeature Setting – F/11 this aperture setting provides a good balance with between Depth of Field and Exposure Value. First, fireworks are 3-D objects with a volume. So, you want to use an F-number adequate enough to keep the entire shell of exploding, burning chemicals in sharp focus from front to back, or inside the Depth of Field. Next, F/11 is a good aperture to allow bright light in fast enough to register on the film sensor but rapidly fall-off to the black background of the night sky.
• ISO 100 – this is a general purpose ISO Value. It’ll keep the burning trails of the fireworks bright and sharp enough, and it’ll reduce the noise generally associated with longer exposures at night.
• Exposure time – 4.0 – 7.0 seconds – again a general purpose setting that may or may not need to adjusted based on field conditions and ambient light.
• Auto White Balance [AWB] – shoot in AWB Mode to make things easier on yourself. Fireworks displays are so variable in the intensity, color, and density of light against a relatively black background, I’m not sure there’s a good one-size-fits-all approach outside of AWB Mode, even trying to shoot one fireworks sequence in Custom and using that for the rest of the show. Resign yourself to some software post-processing work and just go with the AWB. You can choose to shoot in RAW making postproduction white balance related color changes very easy.
• Noise Reduction [NR] – turn it off. You should not need it and it will improve your camera responsiveness between shots. You camera will not need to do extra processing on each shot before it saves the image. Your sequential firing of the shutter will be much faster too preventing you from missing too much of the show while the NR cycle runs its course.
Note: Believe it or not, you can do most of this with most modern point and shoot cameras. So get out your manual of your camera and figure out how do use it. You can do this shot.
4th of July Taste of Minnesota How to photograph fireworks displays
Review
•Tripod
•Cable Release or Timer
•Aperture F11
•ISO 100
•Exposure 4 – 7 Seconds
• Lens 35mm lens or 18 – 55 zoom [to start and depending on range]
•Some homework and planning
Wayne Moran is an artist in a software engineers body and professional photographer living in the Twin cities Metro area of Minneapolis and St. Paul MN.
You can see his photographs through his website http://www.waynemoran.com or follow him on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/waynemoran_inc
Adventures on the Light Rail – The Sales Guys
Would you agree with me that sometimes sales guys can have a questionable reputation? I do not know, there is just something about some of them that I can not quite put my finger on. Maybe the thing is I sense that I can not really trust some of them. I have many friends and family members that are indeed great people and great sales people so this does not implicate every single sales person but there maybe some generalizing wisdom that might be gleaned from this experience. Maybe hearing some recent conversations among sales men on the train, better known as the light rail, just maybe these conversations will give us some valid reasons for those queasy feelings in out stomach when dealing with some sales people.
Today it was one of those recent 98F days with a super high dew point. The Twins games had just gotten over about 45 minutes ago so the train was extra packed. Even in that jam-packed situation, you are able to listen to some conversations. The conversation today was between two very young sales men.
One was a tall pimply faced guy with a huge grin from ear to ear. He was dressed in average business casual attire so nothing other than his louder than average voice would catch someone’s attention. The other gentleman was dressed to the nines with a spiffy expensive summer suit, a very expensive looking leather brief case, a gaudy gold watch and a ring to match and shoes that were of the latest fashion and shined perfectly. He sported a smile that communicates I am god’s gift to the world and you might want to get on the ground and worship me.
These gentlemen were talking boisterously about their work and how great it is and how great they are at it. They were each going down their list of their huge success at work landing these huge deals. Then they went on to what they were going to do next. The tall guy was so sure he was going to be trading options next. One interesting thing I noticed was that neither one of the guys asked the other any questions. They were just spitting out words like a fire hose shoots water on a fire. CRAZY!!
Then they went to the topic of their wonderful ways with women. They went back and forth like a tennis match, telling story after story about their exploits of conquering different women, and then when they would score they would go on to the next. After that, they decided to illuminate to riders on the train on how they would manipulate women. They were sharing trick after trick after trick. While listing to this I felt like I was in a house of ill seeing all the smarmy guys slither through the place. Then they went on (like it was not enough already) telling each other (and us) about who they are going after next. I was thinking, yes I am sure after the 40th conquest, I’m sure you will be filled up and happy right? What an incredibly bizarre and empty life.
So towards the end of my ride, pimply face guy is telling a story about a coworker. He was telling how this other guy is a decent guy, he has his MBA, he has some skills with what he is doing but he went to a “low class” state school for his under graduate studies, implying no one with any brains would go to a school like that. He was ooooooozzzzing with self-righteous high class private school arrogance. I was imagining that he was thinking something like “it is only in an Ivy League type school where all people of any worth go to.” I felt like I was going to puke.
I am sure most of you would considered this experience to be a bit odd and it would be very out of the ordinary and I would have agreed with you if I had not overheard a similar discussion just a few days ago.
So, do you think we have some reason to feel a bit smarmy when we are around some sales men? I know they are not all like this. In fact, most are not but I think too many are. So I am on a quest to find sales guys of great character and great skill. Hey, it would help if you sent me notes on great sales guys that you know. Maybe someday I will to a report on great sales guys.
Until next time on the train, remember “Holding the door can damage equipment and cause delay.”