My Beginner tips for Shooting Fireworks
I love seeing fireworks but have put off photographing them for a long time. Main reason being I hate crowds. The best fireworks shows happen in Long beach during 4th of July and the Christmas tree lighting. Parking in downtown is a mess during these times. Also I am self conscious of going out there and shooting with a camera.
After almost seven years of living in Long beach I decided to take the plunge and photographed last years Christmas Tree lighting. I was happy to see fellow photographers there as well and that reduced my anxiety. Here are my tips on shooting a fireworks show
Location Awareness - Be sure to scout out the location before hand. Identify the spot where you will be taking photos from. Images of the fireworks by itself look nice. But what makes it stand apart would be pairing it against a prominent landmark or a key foreground.
Arrive Early - if you are trying to capture the fireworks up close arriving early is key. Otherwise you will not get the location / composition you want. Be prepared to wait and bring refreshments.
Tripod - This is mandatory if you want your images to have patterns of the fireworks.
Lens - This depends upon your location from the fireworks. During the Christmas tree lighting i was up close. I used my Fuji X100VI with the 23mm lens and it worked out pretty well. For the 4th of July I was a fair bit away and i used my Fuji XT3 with the 70 to 300 mm Lens. if you are closer use a wide angle and as your distance increases you will need a longer lens. Zoom lens are better as you can adjust your focal length. This will help you include or exclude things from your composition but it is not mandatory.
Settings
Main thing is that the shutter speed needs to be between 1 and 10 seconds.
For getting everything in focus try to have your aperture at a minimum of 8. Anything higher than that should be fine.
Adjust your ISO depending upon these 2 Points.
Experiment - Play around with your shutter speed to get different patterns. Also try varying when you take the shot as soon as the firewors are fired vs waiting for them to light up the skup.
Have a spare battery and a SD card as a back up.
My goal for later today is to Photograph the Long Beach Fireworks with the Parkers light house and the lions light house in focus. Lets see how it turns out. By the way Happy fourth of July everyone.
Bonus Tip - If you are a phone shooter for example in Iphone use the live photos option to take a picture and then convert the same to a Long exposure to get something similar to the photos below. You do not need a tripod. But if you want to keep your exposure time up then a tripod is required to avoid any shakes. I am planning to use both my camera and my Iphone and will do some comparison shots later today.
