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Saturday, December 1, 2007

Shooting Fireworks - Photography tips for Holidays

Shooting fireworks can be tricky to get right. Here are my favorite settings for getting the best shots

IMG_3946

 

1) Use a tripod, you need to take long exposures

2) Find a good location. This means you need go there early. if possible get a good foreground like a water body where you can capture some good reflection.

3)Use a cable release to time your shots

3) Use manual focus to focus the fireworks when it starts. You will not be able to use auto focus with much success here

4) Keep ISO low like 100

5) Switch to Manual mode in your camera

6) Choose Bulb mode exposure and keep aperture small like f8 or f11. This will take care of focus as fireworks will keep busting all over the sky.

7) Raw shooting is recommended .

7) Using the cable release start the bulb exposure shot when you see the fireworks starting. release the shutter after you have seen the full burst. This will give a full view of the fireworks rather than just the final burst.

8) Another advantage of using cable release is that you need not look though the view finder all the time. You just need to do it once to make sure that focus and settings are fine. After you have reviewed the initial shots you can make any exposure adjustments. After that you can watch and enjoy the fireworks and just keep clicking the remote cable when you see something interesting to capture.

9) Enjoy the show

 

Here are some more that I took one the same day. They are linked to my Flickr Ablum http://flickr.com/photos/arunsasi

IMG_3933

Fireworks with zoom blur

IMG_3933

IMG_3939

Happy Independence Day