posted by Shelley
Tomorrow is the 4th of July and you’re thinking about grabbing your camera to capture the celebration. You want some awesome photos! Right? If you’ve tried this before, you were most likely disappointed — especially if you were using a digital camera. For as long as fireworks have been around, photographers have been taking dark and blurry photos of them. Fireworks are tricky to capture — it’s dark and your subject won’t hold still. In this case, your subjects even disappear! Here are a few tips on how to get great shots despite the challenges.
- Use a tripod! Good fireworks photos require long exposures, and the best way to get them is to use a tripod.
- Have a flashlight handy! You’re going to be changing camera settings during the show and it is gonna be dark.
- Pick the best location early. Once things get going (especially if you’re going someplace besides your backyard to enjoy a fireworks show), it’s hard to move your stuff in the dark. Look for a place with a clear view of the sky. If possible, find a unique background that will make your photos most interesting (a lake, bridge, pool, friends…whatever) where people aren’t going to walk. Make sure the wind is blowing away from you so smoke doesn’t end up clouding your shots.
- Turn your flash OFF! Be bold and go flashless!
- Drop the ISO to 50 or 100. The higher your ISO, the more sensitive your camera is to light. Normally this means you want to use a higher ISO in dark settings, but when you’re shooting longer exposures (long shutter speeds) high ISO can introduce a lot of digital noise to your photograph. An ISO setting of 100 is a good bet.
- Use the self-timer to prevent vibration. To guarantee a sharper shot, set the camera’s self timer to the shortest duration and click.
- Focus on infinity and use the full manual setting on your camera if available. Set your focus to just less than infinity (or choose a landscape setting if you can’t manually adjust focus) and keep the aperture of f/8 to f/16.
- Use LOOOOOOOONG shutter speeds. This is the most important camera setting you’ll need to worry about. Start at minimum a full second, and experiment with different durations to see what works best.
How to do it: If your camera allows full manual control, it’s simple. Just set your shutter speed to whatever you want. If your camera doesn’t give you full control, put it in the mode that gives you the most control and turn off the flash. If you click the shutter to snap the photo while a rocket’s still rising and before it’s exploded, your camera should automatically meter for a long exposure and set the shutter speed appropriately.
Take lots of photos and make sure you share them! If it doesn’t rain me out — I’ll share a few of my shots here after the weekend…