Tips – How to photograph fireworks displays

Well, The Guy Fawkes has just passed. I actually don’t know what is Guy Fawkes day, I only know that there was a guy who wanted to blow the Westminister up. And that’s it. However, I know that there are gonna be some fireworks displays all over the UK. So, I have to get ready and this is my first attempt to shoot fireworks displays. I have researched and prepared all the things for the shoot.

Equipments

1. A decent tripod, this is a must if you don’t want your bloom to be blurred.
2. A good location, it should be some places where you could place your tripod and use the widest lens you could find to try to capture all the bloom and may be the event.
3. A remote shutter to prevent from camera shaking, I tried to use the mirror-lock functionality or timer, but by the time you wait for 2 secs or 1 secs, the bloom just gone. The fireworks wont’ last long. So, be prepared.

Techniques

1. Set your camera to M mode, so you could control your aperture and shutter speed.
2. Set your lens to the widest angle.
3. Set your F to 11
4. Set your shutter speed to 2 secs or 1 sec.
5. Set your focus to auto and try roughly where the fireworks will go up, and change to Manual focus so the focus won’t change while you’re shooting.
6. Try shooting some of the first blooms and see the results. If it’s too static or blurred, you’ll need to set the shutter slower or faster respectively.
7. If the shot is too bright or too dark, leave the shutter speed alone and dial in a higher or lower F/number respectively.