Can anyone provide me with exposure techniques and/or tricks to getting great photos of fireworks?? HAPPY HOILDAY TO ALL CELEBRATING

Ric
As per Scott Kelby "The Digital Photography Book"

Tripod
Manual Mode
Zoom Lens ~ 200+
Shutter Speed f/11
Set time to 4 seconds. Check to see if it overexposed.... if yes...
Set to 3 seconds.
Bulb mode is best with a shutter cable (wireless) release. Then you can watch and push the button as the rocket brusts, then release as the light trails start to fade. The rest is timing.

Page 175.

Larry

Larry,

Thanks so much!! Tried it last night and think I got some keepers. Last night was a test run actually to a much grander show I hope to expose next weekend. I noticed that my 24-60mm at f/22 was the best setting to capture true colors using my sigma lens. The 85mm f1.4 was not wide enough to capture the expanse of the explosion with all of the fall out and at f/16 the colors can't compare.

Thanks Again!

Ric

Pandacat wrote:
Ric
As per Scott Kelby "The Digital Photography Book"

Tripod
Manual Mode
Zoom Lens ~ 200+
Shutter Speed f/11
Set time to 4 seconds. Check to see if it overexposed.... if yes...
Set to 3 seconds.
Bulb mode is best with a shutter cable (wireless) release. Then you can watch and push the button as the rocket brusts, then release as the light trails start to fade. The rest is timing.

Page 175.

Larry


Good advice. Although the lens size is obvioulsy dependent completely on your position relative to the show. I took about 120 shots last night, mostly with my 20-40mm zoomed almost all the way out, as we were only about 80 yards from the fireworks.

I got some great shots, but also had some problems with the longer exposures showing the ghosts of the previous fireworks in the sky. Oh well, there's always next year...

The learning curve for shooting fireworks with digital camera is much shorter than with film camera, not to mention the fun factor. I wasted many rolls of film and lots of money on printed pictures of lousy shots back in the early 80s, I wish digital photography was available back then.