Photography Tips: Fireworks

One thing I have always enjoyed and I am sure others enjoy are fireworks. Public displays of colourful explosions in the sky. Large bursts, sparkling waterfalls, zig-zagging streaks to even shapes. I’ve captured many of these colourful explosions over the course of owning various photography equipment and it can be an on going experience. Various elements always make each firework display interesting but fun to capture. I’m going to try and give you my best tips in capturing with your digital camera.

Celebration of Lights

One of the biggest events that draws the largest crowds to the shorelines of Vancouver. Hundreds of thousands of people flock to English Bay, Kitsilano and the surrounded beaches to enjoy the spectacular fireworks display that various countries put on. Canada kicked off the first fireworks display and from what we saw from our balcony here in the West End, they did an awesome job!

So how does someone take photos of a fireworks display? I find that it varies depending on lots of things such as camera being used, your environment, the weather and more.

The following is what I try to do when I want to capture the impressive and colourful explosions of these skyward rockets.

Tripod – Try and keep that camera perfectly still. If you don’t have a tripod, try and prop it up against something solid. If you’re camera has a Image Stabilization feature, typically with a tripod you turn it off. I never bother.

Turn off your flash! Countless times do I see people trying to take photos during the night and they have their flash go off. Then you can hear them mutter something under their breath about why it didn’t turn out.

Hands Free – If you can set your camera to do a timed shot then do it. This helps reduce shaky hands! If you have a dSLR (digital SLR) camera, like I do, then look to invest in a remote cable release. I think I bought mine for like $15.The remote cable release allows it so that you don’t have to touch your camera’s shutter button and potentially making it vibrate. Some higher end dSLR’s also have a mirror-lock feature as well (don’t worry too much if you don’t know what this means).

ISO As Low As It Goes – Most cameras have an AUTO ISO feature, if you can turn it off and set the ISO as low as it can go. ISO 100, ISO 50 whatever, do it. The lower the ISO, the less grainy your photos will look. Lowering your ISO means you will have to do longer exposures (slower shutter speeds), especially during the evening or night.

Focus to Infinity, and Beyond! This can be tricky depending on your camera. If your point and shoot has the ability to manually focus, use it, if not try and point it roughly where the fireworks will go off so it can hopefully focus on them. On dSLR’s (and film cameras) you can usually manually focus your camera but focusing on infinity. This will help ensure the camera doesn’t try and ‘hunt’ around in the dark for a focus point which will probably make you miss that great burst. The little side-ways 8 is the infinity symbol.

Aperture or f-stop - There is a lot of discussion out there about what aperture or f-stop you should be when you take firework photos. I just set my camera to an f-stop of 11 and leave it there the whole time. It helps to ensure most of the firework burst will be in focus.

Aperture values are a bit funny in the way they work, but a general idea about them is: The smaller the number (larger the hole) the more light it allows through but the less items you can have in focus. The larger the number (smaller the hole) less amount of light is let through but the more items you can have in focus. Landscape photography generally likes to have a larger f-stop or aperture value as you want more of the scene in focus.

Shutter Speed or Exposure Time – I have found that this can be sometimes tricky and can also vary. Some point and shoot digital cameras don’t allow you to change the shutter speed or exposure time. The little computer inside will try and do a proper exposure and decide what value is best to use. If you turn off your flash, you will have a better chance of capturing the cool bursting effect. As for the dSLR owners out there, what is the best shutter speed to use? Most of the time I hear anywhere between 1 to 4 seconds (1″ – 4″). For myself however, I set my camera (Canon XSi) to BULB and do the exposure myself. I use my remote cable release, set the camera’s shutter speed to BULB and press the button down for anywhere between 1 to 4 seconds. If the fireworks you are watching are one after the other you can probably get away with using longer exposures. If you’re trying to capture the spectacular finale at the end, you will probably be best to use shorter exposures. I found that when I was 3 seconds or longer, the bursts became over exposed because of all the firework shells that were exploding at once.

Composition – As with all types of photography, composition does play a large role. From our balcony I don’t have much choice but to point the camera to where the fireworks are and hope for the best. Luckily the larger ones exploded between the two buildings. Though we could not see the barge that sits in the water off the shore and take that into account. I tried both landscape and portrait type shots, though with the buildings I did find that liked the landscape photos I took better. It also helps show you how large some of these burst got.

The above photo was from the previous year, though I do not know what country was competing at that time. We took front row along the seawall and I set up my tripod. Yes my tripod was in the water as so was I, in fact the water was up to my knees. I shot a lot of those photos in the portrait position because I thought the barge would be a cool element for the shots.

What Lens to Use: Wide or Tele – I first set up my camera with the 70-200mm but found that even at 70mm I was far too close to the buildings in front of me. I wanted to be able to show off most of the firework bursts if possible so I switched over to my wide-angle lens; 18-55mm. Again this could vary, depending on where you are in location to the fireworks display. If you were on top of Cypress mountain (a good 20km away) you might opt for using a telephoto lens to help fill in the frame with the fireworks. Though you could use a wide-angle there too and get all of the city in frame along with the fireworks. I did find myself playing around the range of the 18-55mm, but I did find the 55mm from our location was a bit too close.

So what now?

There are 3 more firework competition days happening, this Saturday (July 25th), Wednesday (July 29th) and the Finale on the following Saturday (August 1st). Hopefully these tips help you capture the best fireworks displays this side of Canada experiences! I will be looking forward to seeing everyone’s firework photos on their favorite photos sharing site such as Flickr!

This Saturday, Robyn and I will be on a Firework Cruise and I will be bringing my camera along. The upside will be the different perspective of the show, but the downside is the water could be choppy as we sit there, making it really difficult to take 1-4 second exposures even with my tripod! Do they my gyroscopic tripods?

If you would like to comment or elabrorate on any of the tips I mentioned above, please feel free to do so below this post!