Taking pictures of fireworks

crystalbella77

crystalbella77

New member
So I have never been able to get good pics of fireworks because I haven't had a decent camera. I have a canon S3IS now which is a point and shoot, but it has manual settings. :) What should my settings be on to get good pics??? I wasn't even scrapping last 4th and I really want to scrap some good fireworks pics with some of the awesome kits I have gotten, lol!
 
<butting in> I have a rebel xti.. and need settings too. LOL

Come on camera girls, where are you???
 
This is how I did it one year. I had a tripod set up. I set my aperture to about 16 or so. Then I made my shutter speed about 1/25 or even lower (this is to make the trail of the fireworks.) The tripod is essential when you do this or you will see a lot of camera shake. It'll take a few fireworks to set up where you want your camera to aim, but once you get it set up and focused, just click the shutter when you see a firework in your viewfinder.
 
I was just about to ask for some suggested settings.
We are going to do some simple fireworks here in the backyard tonight. I was planning on setting up the tripod but I wondered about the rest. What about ISO?
Angela what do you mean by 1/25 is that exposure? How long the shutter thing stays open? DURH I am so new to the world of DSLR. I think there are little pictures to help you choose on my Nikon but I'd love to hear what settings other people use.
 
TRIPOD TRIPOD TRIPOD no matter how unshaky you are you want to be STILL for fireworks

Set the ISO on the LOWEST setting (pref 100 or lower)

turn your flash off

set the aperture (lens opening) to between 8 and 16 (for ISO 100). The aperture controls how much light comes through the lens. The higher the number, the less light

you want a long exposure time so you need to set your shutter speed to a lenghty time (Start with 2-4 seconds or so and increase from there) Values below one second will cause the light tracks being too short for a pleasant effect. Exposures longer than eight seconds may allow you to capture more fireworks in the same frame.

If you are uncomfy with manual you can try landcape settings (the mountain) or some PnS have a fireworks mode or a bulb (B) setting (and you can adjust shutter speed)
 
Thanks Meg. I'm playing with it in the living room. Got the tripod set up taking pictures of that stupid chowder cartoon LOL Anything to get some practice in LOL
 
Amy, I used the flash when I was taking pics of the kids playing with sparklers. It gave me the trail of light PLUS I could see the kids. When I was taking pics of the fireworks (on the ground), I turned off the flash.

So, I have a question...why are you closing up your aperature? I was looking at the pictures I took last 4th and at New Year and I have my aperature set to 2.8. What effect will I get with a more open aperature?

Thanks for the help girls :D
 
Thanks ladies!! I knew there would be some shutterbugs here!! :thumbup:

I don't have a tripod, but I will make one, even if I have to lay on top of the car or something, lol!!!! I do have the landscape setting so if all else fails I will use that one, but I really want to try manual. It takes some practice but it is definitely worth it I think!
 
I'm not a photographer by any means, but I do know you'll need a tripod and SLOW shutterspeed. Here's a link to an article posted on MSN about photographing fireworks. http://tech.msn.com/howto/articlepcw.aspx?cp-documentid=8314900&GT1=40000

If you don't have a tripod, maybe just go buy one of those really cheap small ones with the bendy legs and set it on something else stable. I think they're less than $20. They're useful for other things: you can set them in trees or wrap them around poles. I need to pick one up. Anyone know what they're called?
 
Pioneer Woman has some tips for shooting fireworks on her site today also. I went off and forgot my tripod when we left for my Dad's where we were shooting off fireworks, but I think I got some pretty cool ones just holding the camera. I'll have to download them off my CF card tomorrow.

Megan are you thinking of the Gorillapod maybe? The Original version is around $25 but the heavier version for SLR's is about $45. I don't have one but they look like they'd be pretty handy to have, will have to add it to my never ending camera equipment wish list!
 
ooh! Love that gorillapod! I didn't know they had them for SLR cameras with heavy zooms! I know what I'm getting for my anniversary now!
 
I totally messed mine up last night. But at least they were just rinky dinks in the front yard LOL! The "big show" is tonight. One thing that's probably obvious to everybody else- don't use your zoom lens. The 200mm just was not necessary and I think that's where I went wrong. Tonight I'll try the other one. It goes down to 18mm so I think I should be ok with that???
 
AmyM said:
The 200mm just was not necessary and I think that's where I went wrong. Tonight I'll try the other one. It goes down to 18mm so I think I should be ok with that???
Click to expand...

That worked for me. I ended up with these settings most of the time last night on my Nikon D40x:

Shutter - Bulb
Aperture - f/16.0
ISO - 100
Focal Length - 18.0 mm
Manual focus

I suppose your focal length (zoom or lack thereof...) will depend on how close you are to the fireworks. HTH!
 
See I was looking at your pictures thinking "mine look like crap, and I had the same settings". LOL But then I remembered, oh DUH I used the 200mm lens and had the aperture cranked up to f16 and sometimes f25. heeeheee yes I am a newbie to DSLR.

Why do you set it on bulb? I just did it because all the online tutorials said to. (i have the NikonD40) I'm curious. Is it because you can hold the button down as long as you want to? Some of mine I held it down about 4 seconds, some 10......seemed like the longer I held it down the more blur I got. I thought I was supposed to keep the shutter open a long time. Hmmm... Ideas?
 
Yeah, I'm new to DSLR, too, so I feel like I got pretty lucky my first time on manual. :p

Everything I read said to first of all be sure to use a tripod, and a remote if you have one so that you don't even have to touch the camera once you have it focused, framed, etc. Well, I don't have a remote (or whatever it's called...), so I was just very careful to hold still next to the tripod.

Most recommendations I saw were for ISO 100 (or maybe 200), and to have the aperture set somewhere between f/8 - f/16 or even f/22. I used f/16 the whole time. And I went with the Bulb setting for shutter speed since that was recommended, too. I think it's because you then have manual control from shot to shot over the shutter speed without having to reset it on the camera every time. So I would count as I was holding down the shutter. Now my counting was probably not very precise, but I'd guess I was holding down the shutter anywhere from 5-25 seconds. I tried to vary it. Most of the time I was probably in the 12-15 second range. I just tried to be very still as I was holding down the shutter to reduce the blur, even though I was using the tripod. Oh, I did read somewhere NOT to use the VR on your lens if you're using a tripod. Wasn't and issue for me since I was using the 18-55 lens. Maybe that's what happened when you used your 200mm lens?

We lucked out and had perfect weather, too. It was a clear night, and not too hot. Plus we ended up in a fabulous spot for watching the fireworks this year.

HTH! Good luck tonight!
 
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