Firework photographs have a special charm. They might look like "typical" photographs, the truth is that not everyone can take a correct picture of fireworks.
Taking a photo of this type is a challenge for the beginner photographer, as well as being a good way to train on the manual and semi-manual controls of our digital SLR camera.
If you want to start in the photography of fireworks , today's article will give you some keys, tricks and tips to achieve this task.
MATERIAL NEEDED FOR A GOOD PICTURE OF FIREWORKS
Stable tripod: Night photography (including fireworks) requires long exposure times, which would normally cause vibrations and moving photos . To avoid any possibility of vibration a tripod becomes essential. If you are not going to use a tripod you do not need to continue reading, everything else will be useless.
Remote shutter: Even if a tripod is used, the camera may suffer microvibrations due to the time of shooting. Even if we try to shoot subtly, something will always be noticed. To avoid this it is recommended to use a remote trigger. On the other hand, this little accessory will help us to start and finish the shot by prolonging it as long as we want.
Piece of black cardboard: or any element that serves to cover the target during the time between a firework and another. We can even use the lens cap itself.
A generous memory card , or two.
Battery well charged.
STEPS TO PHOTOGRAPH FIREWORKS
Photograph by Mike Jagendorf
1- A successful photo of fireworks begins with a good location . The perspective from which we are going to shoot will be key. We will have to ask ourselves certain questions well in advance: where do I get a better perspective? If I choose to shoot from a certain point, what background elements does that point offer me (mountains, buildings, etc.)?
Arriving in advance to the point of the event and trying to inform us about the place from where the fireworks will fire could help us answer all these questions related to framing and composition properly.
2- Smoke is an inconvenience present in all fireworks shows. Keep this in mind and when planning the point from which you are going to shoot, try to place yourself in favor of the wind, so that the wind blows in the same direction in which you take the picture and not against. In this way, if there were smoke, it would go further and not get the picture.
3- When the time comes we will plant our tripod and prepare the adjustments of our camera as described in the following point.
4- The first step in the preparation of our camera is the choice of an adequate focal length . All targets and all focal lengths can work, although it is true that because the fireworks route is usually unknown and quite unpredictable, it is recommended to use a small focal length. Something between 16 and 24mm could work perfectly and help us frame the firework and the whole scene is its entirety.
5- If your camera or lens has an image stabilizer, disable it . Image stabilizers slightly steal some photo quality from us in exchange for stabilizing the image. As we will use a tripod and a remote trigger, we can do without the stabilizer.
John Brennan Photography
6- Turn off the flash . Its function is useless when we photograph distant things. If you see it open by itself, please deactivate it. Not only will it not help you, it will also make your photos worse.
7- Normally increasing the ISO value helps to obtain more light in low light situations. In our case we do not have this problem since we will take long exposure photos where we end up getting all the sufficient light without resorting to ISO. Therefore, almost mandatory advice: keep your ISO as low as you can, always around 100 .
8- Select the manual mode of your SLR camera. Yes yes, total manual. We have already tired of the automatic mode, and we have already experimented a lot with the semi-manual modes . Now it's time to work in total manual mode. Do not panic, in the following steps I will give you the exact guidelines that you have to follow. Remember that the manual mode is selected on the camera dial, with the symbol "M" on most cameras. The manual mode basically has two aspects that are the ones we will adjust next: the aperture of the diaphragm on one side and the firing speed on the other side.
9- Select a diaphragm aperture setting between f / 8 and f / 18 .
Lakewentworth photography
10- Calculate approximately how long each firework lasts from its firing until its extinction. You can select that time as the firing speed and leave it by default, so that every time you see the launch of a firework you shoot the shutter and wait for the camera to finish the shot in the time you have planned.
A much better way to control the shooting speed is through the BULB function. This function allows us to select freely and independently when the shooting starts and when it ends, all through our remote trigger, in this way we can start the shot and finish it ourselves as soon as the light has extinguished without having to wait for the 5 or 10 seconds that otherwise we would have programmed.
To use BULB mode, my favorite, we will first set the shooting mode to "Remote Shutter", and then we will select a slow shooting speed, the slowest possible Most cameras when reaching a speed of 30 seconds automatically show us the "BULB" indicator on the screen, which indicates that we are ready to press the shutter button when we want to start recording or recording the image and press it again when We want to finish the registration.
11- If you want to record in the same photo several fireworks that happen in time you just have to actuate the trigger and let the camera record a long sequence of fireworks for a minute or two. While doing this, using the lens cap, your hand or a piece of black cardboard you have to cover the lens during the dead times, times when there is no firework.
Bonus Track: Contrary to what many people think, the most beautiful of some fireworks are not the colors of them but rather the landscape in which they occur. Keep this in mind and find a good location. You will succeed.
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