Blog
How to shoot fireworks? (07.12.2016)
Text and photos: Aivar Pihelgas
One of the most beautiful moments of the New Year’s Eve is the fireworks. We are going to give some tips on how to photograph fireworks. First of all, you should take time to find the place of shooting. Don’t try to go too close to the place where the fireworks is being shot out because firstly, it might be dangerous and secondly, the results are going to be more interesting if you don’t shoot the fireworks from the ground against the dark sky. We chose to shoot it from the area of Suurupi lighthouse Front. This ancient navigation mark looks very beautiful as the main subject of the photo. Since I knew from which direction the fireworks is going to be shot out, I put my camera ready early on and I left enough room in the upper part of the frame. But you shouldn’t leave too much empty sky on the photo either. What makes shooting the fireworks difficult is the fact that everything happens in a few minutes and you don’t get to have second chances. Wide angle lenses are suitable for this. I used the very bright Nikkor 20mm f/1.8G AF-S ED for these photos.
Use a tripod and try to be really careful while shooting for the camera to remain still and not move.
Next, set up the exposure. There is no specific rule when it comes measuring the exposure because it depends on the brightness of the sky, the intensity of the other light sources and for example, on whether there is snow or not. If the colours of the fireworks are too pale, the photo is overexposed. Since you need the aperture and exposure time to achieve the depth of field, you set the exposure by changing ISO. Of course, there is danger of having digital noise when using high ISO! Since the Suurupi lighthouse Front is painted white and it has lights outside, I needed to take this brightness into consideration when setting up the exposure. If I had chosen a longer exposure, I would have had an overexposured lighthouse. For avoiding that, I took some test photos before the fireworks started. I recommend using manual shooting mode and setting the aperture to f/8 or f/16 in order to have enough depth of field. The exposure time depends on the goal. Exposure time can be 1-2 seconds and then, you get single light bouquets on the photo.
There is an option to lengthen the exposure time to 30 seconds. Now, you get many fireworks bouquets on the photo. For not having everything else overexposured during the long exposure, cover the lens with something that doesn’t let through the light (for example, piece of black cardboard) and take it away during the time when the next fireworks bouquets open in sky. But you need to be careful for not to accidentally move the tripod or the camera! If the brightness of the sky and fireworks are remarkably different from the rest of the environment, you need to take separate photos of the landscape using the precise exposure and later add these to the fireworks by using a photo processing program.
Don’t forget about focusing! We focused the lighthouse by using the autofocus system and then, we set the camera to manual focusing mode so that the camera would not try to find focus during the shooting.
