Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Independence Day Fireworks (And Some Fireworks Photography Tips!)

 Yesterday, I enjoyed some great fireworks for Independence Day! It's very difficult to capture fireworks on a camera; I'm fairly new at taking pictures of fireworks (I've only have taken pictures of fireworks a couple of times). I've posted my top ten, very best pictures of yesterday's fireworks here.




This one was a firework of a star: I got the beginning of it, but it became more of a star as it "fanned out"



Hehe! Smiley!







I'm still learning how to take good pictures of fireworks, but I have found these things out as I was taking pictures:

  1. Make sure your camera is very steady as you're taking pictures. I've seen that some articles suggest buying a tripod, but since I don't have one/don't have plans to get one, I simply took pictures with my good, old-fashion hands. Taking pictures without a tripod can make your pictures of the fireworks look "squiggly": I suggest resting your arm on something sturdy (I used the arm of a lawn chair) so your fireworks don't look as "squiggly."
  2. If your camera has a "Fireworks" setting, use it! I've noticed what it does is that once you click the camera, there is a delay and then your picture shows up on the screen. My theory is that the delay is for getting the "exposure" from the light from the fireworks. It's also during this delay that it's very important to keep the camera steady.
  3. While on the "Fireworks" setting, snap the picture before the fireworks explode. It's easier to do this when the fireworks have a stream of light to light up their path before they explode. Right before you think it's about to go off, snap the picture, keep your camera very steady, and wait for the picture to come up. 
  4. Take LOTS of pictures. If you're anything like me and taking pictures, you may take 100 pictures and might end up with only 15 or 20 good ones. For this Independence Day, I took 108 pictures of fireworks, and in the end I found only 21 pictures that were good (I've posted the top 10 best here). The more pictures you take, the greater the chance you will get a lot of good pictures. 

Those are my tips for taking pictures of fireworks. Do you have any particular tips that you could recommend to anyone taking pictures of fireworks? Leave a comment!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day!

God Bless,
 God Bless, Miss Elizabeth Bennet

2 comments:

  1. Miss Elizabeth, those are the very same tips I would have said. :) I also took a ton of pictures (post about that on PaH coming soon, I hope :P ;) and we also saw a smilie one! Gotta love those. :)

    You got some beautiful pictures! Isn't the fireworks setting great? This was my first time using it, but I was very happy with it. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Charity U,
    Can't wait to see the post at PaH!

    Thank you! I think now I really know how to really use the fireworks setting (before I was mostly experimenting), I love it!

    ReplyDelete

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