I touched breifly on firework photography before. NOW i have some new photos to share with you all that can help illistrate how to take good firework photos.
First off, all my images are taken with my Canon Rebel XTI, usnig a 50 mm prime lens. my exposure time was usually 3-6 seconds per image. I could have slowed it down quite a bit more. I also need a wider angled lens so i can capture more of the images.
Other equiptment i used, which made this work much easier. a tripod, and a shutter cable.
For this first shot, i tried out my Apeture mode. I set the Apeture to 14 and took the photo. It took too long and my image was very washed out. I figured that shutter mode was much better. I set my shutter speed to 3 seconds and eventually slowed it down to 6 seconds. The fireworks show was rather short, or i would have made the speed even slower.
The hardest part of taking decent firework photos in Alaska, is that even at 11 pm when the firework show was on, it was still very light out, My images are digitally darkened in Adobe Lightroom, when i processed my RAW files.
Key points to remember about firework photography.
Set up your camera on a tripod. if you want your images to be nice and clear, the color trails to be solid, you need a tripod.
Use a shutter cable to set off your shutter. Even pushing the button yourself will give off a camera shake. And using a self timer makes for unreliable timing of photos.
Set your exposure for a minimum of 1 second and slow down the shutter speed as you go. They can go up to 10 seconds long during a finalie in order to capture many bursts.
Take as many photos as your camera will let you. Just keep clicking untill the show is over. You can always toss out. I took over 150 photos in our short show and am only showing you a few.
Use a wide angled lens. I used my 50 prime and was rather close to the show. I missed many bursts going off above my camera range and below. If i would have had a wide angled lens i could have captured many more shots.
I hope you are inspired to take some firework photos next time you get the chance to!
