Welcome back!

With the Fourth of July coming up this week I’m sure there are many hopefuls who’ll be hoping to photograph their July 4th fireworks. This is one of those things that throws a lot of people when you only have a few minutes to capture that spectacular shot.  With the thousands of other digital shooters that share this pain we thought we’d offer some tips.

Because you’re going to need a slow enough shutter speed to capture the falling light trails you are going to need to shoot fireworks with your camera on a tripod.

Now this is when you’ll really benefit from using a cable release or remote, because you’ll need to see the direction of the fireworks to know when to push the shutter button—if you’re looking in the viewfinder it will be more of a hit or miss proposition … not to mention you’ll not get to fully enjoy the fireworks display too!

Ideally a 200mm or more zoom lens would be best so you can get in tight and capture just the fireworks themselves. If you want fireworks and the background then use a wider lens.

Here you’ll wanna set your camera to full Manual mode, because you just set two settings and you’re good to go:

1. Set the Shutter Speed to 4 seconds
2. Set the Aperture to f/11. Fire a test shot and look at the LCD monitor on the back of your camera to see if you like the results. If it overexposes, lower the shutter speed to 3 seconds, then take another shot and check the results again.
3. I would recommend a manual focus as well so that your autofocus doesnt keep trying to fix on a focal point each frame and slow down your shooting. Try to set your focus to infinity and leave it there, check mid show and make sure it hasn’t moved.

Here’s another couple of things to try …

1. If your camera has “Bulb” mode (where the shutter stays open as long as you hold down the shutter release button) you can try this.  Hold the shutter button down when the rocket bursts, then release when the light trails start to fade.
2. Or keep the shutter open in “bulb” mode but place a black card over the lens.  Slide it in front of the lens periodically while shutter stays open, so you can include blooms from several series in one shot.

(Most Canon and Nikon digital SLRs have bulb mode).

The rest is up to your imagination & timing — because now you’ve got the exposure and sharpness covered.

Hope you all get some great shots! I’d love to see your shots or comments below or post.

Here’s some more fireworks inspiration.