Brenda Landrum

One of my favorite things about 4th of July is photographing the fireworks. It’s an opportunity to experiment and have some fun while my family is enjoying putting on the show.

Every fireworks display is a little different as far as how much light is at the location (city or country), this is going to be the biggest variable when shooting fireworks, but with a few starting points you should be able to capture some really fun images. Here is what you need …

1. Digital SLR camera that you can manually adjust the exposure settings for ISO, Aperture, and has a Bulb settings for the shutter speed.
2. Extra Battery
3. Tripod if you want to keep your surrounding landscape in focus. I personally do not use a tripod as I am not trying to expose the landscape but to only catch the firework trails so I do not mind some camera shake from handholding the camera.

Using a digital slr that you can manually set the exposure settings is key because you do not want your camera on auto mode, the exposure will not be right. You are going to need to set the ISO and Aperture and then use the Bulb setting for the exposure. Bulb allows you to press the shutter release button for as long as you want the shutter open.

Start with these settings and you can adjust to what your situation is.

1. ISO – set it to the lowest setting you can … ISO 50, 100, or 200. You want to reduce as much noise as possible.
2. Aperture – set this to something mid-range … f/5.6, f/8, f/11.
3. Focus – if you can auto focus on something prior to take off and then track as is goes into the air this can work very well, this is how I did the below photos. You can also set your manual focus if your camera is having a hard time finding focus and will keep the camera from hunting while you are trying to shoot.
4. Shutter Speed – set your camera to the Bulb settings and start with holding the shutter open for around 2-4 seconds and see what you get. If it’s too dark hold it open longer. If it’s too bright, don’t hold it open as long. This is going to be your variable even as the night goes on so keep checking your photos and adjust.

My settings started out at ISO 640, f/8, and 1/4 sec shutter for the images below. We still had some light from the very end of the sun setting plus I was still taking shots of my family preparing everything so I was changing my settings back and forth.

As the night went on I changed my settings to ISO 100, f/4.0, and 2 sec. shutter. If I would set my aperture (f/stop) higher to something like f/8.0 then my shutter would have needed to be open longer.

For the sparkler images the settings were at ISO 100, f/4.0, and shutter speeds of 2 sec, 5 sec, and 3 sec. I kept adjusting how long I held the shutter down as my subjects were making big movements with the sparklers.

I hope this gives you a starting point the next time you want to photograph fireworks and always remember to have fun and change your settings to see what different effects you can achieve.