How To Take Spectacular Fireworks Pictures

As always with all our tutorials, I took all the pictures in this tutorial myself. So what you are reading are tips that I have personally tried and that worked for me. (These are not tips gathered from the Internet and slapped together into an article with images borrowed from Flickr.) If you put these tips into practice, you should be able to obtain the same result I did — or even better. Email me if you need more explanation on any of them.

A good fireworks picture can be one of the most spectacular pictures you take, and the opportunity comes only a couple of times a year. Taking good fireworks pictures is not too difficult and you don’t need an expensive digital camera to do so — but there are a few pointers to keep in mind. As far as equipment is concerned, you need a tripod and a DSLR or a camera with manual mode is recommended, though I took all the fireworks pictures in this tutorial using a Fujifilm FinePix F10 point-and-shoot digital camera.

Focal Length = 20.1mm, Shooting Mode = Night Scene Mode
Shutter Speed = 3 sec., Aperture = F4.7, ISO = 80
Sharpened in Photoshop Elements

Fireworks Scene Mode

Many digital cameras now come with a Fireworks scene mode. What this scene mode does is keep the shutter open for about 3 seconds, long enough for you to capture a trail and a burst. Experiment with this scene mode to see if it fits your needs. I actually used the Night scene mode for the pictures in this tutorial and I tell you how I did it later.

I usually find that to capture spectacular fireworks display, you need to switch your digital camera to manual mode, and this is what we will cover in this tutorial. For spectacular fireworks photos, you need to understand how the shutter speed and aperture on your camera affect what gets recorded.

Shutter Speed

First, your camera must be able to keep the shutter open for a few (3 or more) seconds of exposure since you want to capture both the burst as well as the luminous trails created by the falling burning particles. Some people like to record the trail that goes from the ground up into the sky, but I find this distracting and prefer to record the burst and falling trails only. But it’s up to you.

Switch your camera to Manual and set the shutter to Bulb. Set to Bulb, the shutter will remain open as long as you press and keep the shutter release button down — and close when you release the shutter release button.

Keep the shutter open and record a burst from the moment it explodes to the time when it starts to fade. If you are taking only one burst, then you’re done.

If you want to take multiple bursts on the same frame, just put the lens cap (or simply a thick cardboard or even your hand) on top of the lens (be careful not to touch the lens). Then take the cap off for the next burst and continue this cap on/off process until you are satisfied you have recorded enough bursts. You don’t want too many bursts (might cause overexposure) and you want them at different points in the scene. Three bursts are usually a good number.

It’s a good idea to include foreground buildings or other landmarks to situate the fireworks. Since leaving the shutter open for too long may cause these buildings to be overexposed, one way to ensure correct exposure all around is to take a test picture(s) of the buildings first to see how many seconds they need for correct exposure — and then restrict your actual fireworks capture to that time length.

For example, if your test shows that the buildings need 5 seconds for correct exposure, then open your shutter for the first fireworks burst. Say, that took 3 seconds. It means you have two more seconds you can use to expose the next burst. In this way, you have 2 fireworks burst and a foreground building or landmark — all correctly exposed.

Two bursts
Focal Length = 20.1mm, Shooting Mode = Night Scene Mode
Shutter Speed = 3 sec., Aperture = F4.7, ISO = 80
Sharpened in Photoshop Elements

Aperture

The aperture you use determine the thickness of the trails. A small aperture (such as F8) will record thin trails, whereas a large aperture (such as F2.8) will record the trails thicker.

Whether to record the trails as thin or thick is a matter of preference. I personally find thin trails more appealing and find the thick trails take too much attention away from the burst itself. Using a small aperture also allows me to use a longer shutter speed and thus record multiple bursts.

If your digital camera does not have very slow shutter speeds, or shoots only in Program AE mode, it will be a bit more challenging to select a small aperture. The aperture used would most probably be F2.8 resulting in thick lines. One way to force your camera to use a smaller aperture is to zoom in as this usually closes down the aperture.

Focal Length = 20.1mm, Shooting Mode = Night Scene Mode
Shutter Speed = 3 sec., Aperture = F4.7, ISO = 80
Sharpened in Photoshop Elements

Exposure Mode Using A Point-and-Shoot

If you do not have Bulb setting, then switch to Manual, or Shutter-Speed, or Aperture-Priority mode. If you have a Point-and-Shoot digital camera, it will usually not have any of those modes, but will usually have Fireworks scene mode, Night Scene mode, or Slow Shutter scene mode. Choose the mode that will give you a shutter speed of about 3 seconds or more.

For the fireworks images in this tutorial, I set my point-and-shoot digital camera to Night Scene mode which gives me a shutter speed of 3 seconds. I zoom in a bit and that restricts the aperture to F4.7. I also set the ISO to 80 (the lowest on that particular camera) to prevent overexposure when using long shutter speeds.

Location

A good location will allow you to capture spectacular fireworks display. We were at Disney and found that being on the ground and framing the Cinderella Castle gave a beautiful composition. But there was a problem. Too many people! The crowd that also gathered to watch the fireworks meant that we were jostled continually and the view was often blocked by people walking in front.

Staking a position on higher ground meant coming early – as much as one or even two hours before the fireworks started. That did not seem appealing. What we did instead was to reserve a room at the Disney Contemporary Resort. We got a room on the 7th floor of the tower that faced the Magic Kingdom [you need to ask for it or your room will face the lake or garden]. Even then, because of the angle, I was not able to include the beautiful Cinderella Castle in the shots. So I included the Space Mountain instead.

Focal Length = 20.1mm, Shooting Mode = Night Scene (Standard)
Shutter Speed = 3 sec., Aperture = F4.7, ISO = 80
Fireworks from 3 different shots, sharpened and combined in Photoshop Elements

Fireworks Photography Tips

You’ll be using very slow shutter speeds, so camera shake is a major problem. Handholding your camera will guarantee trails that look amateurishly shaky. So, use a tripod. If you need your camera to reach over a balcony railing or other obstacle, remember that with most tripods you can also extend the middle pole for added height (though extending the pole too high might compromise the stability). If your camera has built-in image stabilization, you will need to turn it off when using a tripod.
If your camera allows it, you can use a release cable or remote controller to further reduce camera shake. Not having either on my P&S, I resort to using the self-timer though it’s tricky to capture the bursts just when you want to. I found that a 2-second self-timer allows you to press the shutter release button on the camera just as the fireworks soar into the sky and start recording just after it explodes with the falling trails.
Use a small ISO for best image quality. This will also allow you to use a long shutter speed and small aperture.
If your lens has manual focus, set it to infinity. If not, and if you have difficulty focusing in the dark, then point the camera at some lighted object far away and half-press the shutter release button to effectively hold the focus at infinity.
A personal preference: I don’t trip the shutter release as soon as the fireworks explode because I find that the extreme brightness of the initial explosion results in overexposure. Instead, I wait for the trails to bloom fully and then open the shutter at that instant so as to catch the bloom and the beautiful falling trails.
If there are 4 or more bursts in a series, wait for the last couple of bursts in the series. Too many bursts will result in overexposure.
If your camera has a long zoom, then you can fill in the whole area with a single burst. If your camera does not zoom in much, then consider filling the scene with two or more bursts on the same frame.
No double exposure function or Bulb on your digital camera? Don’t worry, the magic of digital photography allows you to sandwich a number of bursts afterwards in an image editing software, such as Photoshop. You can combine bursts as creatively as you desire, even making some appear smaller or larger to achieve a balanced and pleasing composition. Just remember to indicate that the final picture is a sandwiched composition — you don’t want to misrepresent it as a single photo now, do you?
Some of your pictures appear shaky when viewed up close? Never mind! If you intend to display for Web only, the small picture size will not show the imperfections, and a good montage with different colored explosions can still be a spectacular image that you can personally treasure.
As you can see, a DSLR camera that allows you to use manual mode, long shutter speeds, adjustable aperture, has a wide-angle lens (especially if you are going to be relatively close to the launching point), and has a remote control is ideal. But if your camera does not have all of those features (as mine did not), don’t let that stop you — you can still take spectacular fireworks shots by following the pointers and tips in this tutorial.
Last, but not least, do not forget fireworks safety.