I am totally a beginner at fireworks. I don’t confess to really have a lot of knowledge, but I am going to share what I seemed to learn, and maybe it will help someone out.
In my life, I have taken plenty of firework pictures at places like Disneyland with my little point and shoot camera on an automatic setting. They turned out pretty and I was happy enough with them. I really want to figure out how to use my DSLR, on manual settings, to take pictures of fireworks. I want to know so that when I get in a situation like July 4 or a trip to Disneyland, I know what to do to make pictures I am happier with than “happy enough”.
I decided to do some experiment pictures with the camera knowledge I already have. During this past week on July 4, while I did fireworks with my family, I tried it out. I definitely learned a few tricks that work at least for ground fireworks. I hope to have a chance soon to try it with aerial fireworks.
First, for people who may be reading this and using a DSLR on automatic settings, try switching it to a manual setting and playing around. What I explain is going to be for some of the manual settings, and playing around won’t hurt your camera. That is the beauty of digital. I most commonly use the Av setting on my Canon DSLR. It is my favorite manual setting because it is not full manual and it helps me be quicker and get the right pictures on a photo shoot. I can shoot in full manual, I know how, but this is the setting I choose because of what I get to control. I think every person who uses manual settings probably has their favorite one, Av is mine. Av, on the camera dial, means aperture priority. It allows you to adjust the aperture, and it will take care of your shutter speed based on the aperture that you choose. If you are new to this or that term is new to you, let me explain some terms in ways that helped me remember.
Aperture is the setting that controls whether a foreground is in focus/background is blurry (which we all know I LOVE), or whether the whole picture is sharp. It is a number that I have dealt with as low as 1.2 (really focused foreground, blurry background), and I have used as high as in the 30′s. It can be called an f-stop, and it is usually written f1.2, etc. This number I would say is directly related to the lenses that you use/buy. To get an f-stop in the 1′s (f1.2, f1.4, f1.8), you have to buy a lens that will allow that low of an f-stop.
Shutter speed is pretty much what it sounds like. It is how fast the shutter on your camera opens and closes. The easiest thing for me to remember is that when the shutter is opening and closing slowly (1/2, 1/4), there is more blur. When it opens and closes quickly (1/200, 1/800), there is not.
So, Av allows you to choose your f-stop and it will adjust your shutter speed accordingly. Another manual setting on your camera is Tv, and that one allows you to choose your shutter speed, and it adjusts your aperture accordingly.
The only other thing you need to know about is ISO and I am not going to go deep into that. ISO’s let you shoot in different lighting situations. Low number ISO (100, 200) is good for daytime, bright outdoor pictures. High number ISO (1600, 3200) is good for lower light, maybe indoor situations. The higher the ISO the more “noise” is in your pictures. I have a hard time explaining noise except to say it is kind of like a grainy-ness, but a little different than grain. It isn’t too noticeable depending on your camera and settings you are using, but it is there.
Okay, now that you know about those, here are two examples, and what my camera was set on, so that you know how I took them and why they look the way they do:
1. This was one of the first pictures I took of the night. I had my camera set on Av, so I was choosing the f-stop.
f1.8 (lowest f-stop my lens will allow), 1/80 (shutter speed that usually doesn’t cause much blur), ISO 125 (night outside, but fireworks are quite bright, so it is a lot of light)
I realized after a few of these shots that maybe with fireworks I should be focusing on my shutter speed, not as much on my f-stop. I then switched to Tv on my camera, and started taking shots like this one in number 2.
2. Okay, this one was taken with the following settings:
f6.3, 1/8 (a lot slower shutter speed, one that will usually blur), ISO 100
You can see how the different camera settings really made a difference with the pictures. I will be honest that I love #2 more. When it comes to those ground fountains I was LOVING the blur. I mostly loved that with the knowledge I had of how to use my camera, I was able to play around and create something I was proud of. It was fun! Which is your favorite? I encourage you to change to a manual setting and see what you can do with your camera, it is really fun!
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