How to shoot fireworks

[mickey2000]

 

[Steve's Girl]

One problem that I may have had was not turning the IS off. Is that a possibility?

This is definitely a possibility. With my VR lens, if it is on a tripod and I do not turn VR off, I will get some blurring. Can't explain it in technical terms other than the lens is looking for motion and the VR mechanism creates a slight vibration.

 

[barrie]

Portland has fireworks on the river for the 4th and also in June for it's Rose Festival. I took over 200 photos at the Rose Festival show for practice. Here are a few af my faves.





The last one was a really lucky shot. One of the blasts went off really low by mistake (no one was hurt that I know of). I just happennned to catch it.

 

[fan_of_small_world]

barrie,
I love that last one where the firework went off too low. What a great catch!

 

[S. C.]

barrie, excellent shots. Love the way your shots show the fireworks, water, and city lights. And the last one is great. I'll be happy if mine turn out half that good.

 

[gokenin]

first try ever at fireworks,handheld so please be a little understanding

File size: 54837 bytes
File date: 2007:07:04 11:56:56
Camera make: Canon
Camera model: Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Date/Time: 2007:07:03 21:23:35
Resolution: 800 x 600
Flash used: No
Focal length: 12.6mm (35mm equivalent: 79mm)
CCD width: 5.72mm
Exposure time: 1.000 s
Aperture: f/3.2
Whitebalance: Manual
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure Mode: Auto bracketing

File size: 76447 bytes
File date: 2007:07:04 11:57:46
Camera make: Canon
Camera model: Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Date/Time: 2007:07:03 21:25:01
Resolution: 800 x 600
Flash used: No
Focal length: 12.6mm (35mm equivalent: 79mm)
CCD width: 5.72mm
Exposure time: 1.000 s
Aperture: f/3.2
Whitebalance: Manual
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure Mode: Auto bracketing

File size: 75652 bytes
File date: 2007:07:04 11:53:49
Camera make: Canon
Camera model: Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Date/Time: 2007:07:03 21:19:34
Resolution: 800 x 600
Flash used: No
Focal length: 12.6mm (35mm equivalent: 79mm)
CCD width: 5.72mm
Exposure time: 1.000 s
Aperture: f/3.2
Whitebalance: Manual
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure Mode: Auto bracketing

File size: 67895 bytes
File date: 2007:07:04 11:54:24
Camera make: Canon
Camera model: Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Date/Time: 2007:07:03 21:20:23
Resolution: 800 x 600
Flash used: No
Focal length: 12.6mm (35mm equivalent: 79mm)
CCD width: 5.72mm
Exposure time: 1.000 s
Aperture: f/3.2
Whitebalance: Manual
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure Mode: Auto bracketing

 

[DVC Jen]

Fantastic shots everyone. Here are a few of mine from our local festival. It is held at the end of June because a neighboring city has theirs on the 4th. I was VERY close to where these were actually shot off from "the box" because we were doing "firewatch" for the city. Some of the firerworks were cut off. I used to 28-135mm IS lens (IS turned off) on a tripod. I had it set at 28mm but still needed a wider range. Hopefully by this time next year i will have the 10-20mm lens I want for things like this.

shot manual - f/8, white balance was tungsten, ISO100, shutter speed 2-5 seconds with a remote wireless shutter release - on my Canon XTi.

The only post processing was some cropping on a few and resizing (smaller) on all of them.

 

[barrie]

barrie,
I love that last one where the firework went off too low. What a great catch!

barrie, excellent shots. Love the way your shots show the fireworks, water, and city lights. And the last one is great. I'll be happy if mine turn out half that good.

Thanks - I've never gotten very good fireworks photos at WDW so I was pretty happy with these. Now let's see if I can remember what to do for tonight!

DVC Jen -Those are great! Such clarity - I'd love to get some like that!

 

[handicap18]

Great shots everyone. Keep em coming. I wont be shooting any fireworks (photographically speaking of course) this year. They didn't have them in my parents town like they usually do when I was there last weekend and I'm up early for work tomorrow. So nothing for me tonight.

 

[Master Mason]

From the 1st at DL, this was hand held as I didn't have the tripod with me. Where we were didn't have a great background or anything either, next time I go, I am going to take the tripod and set up in the hub somewhere good to try and get some good shots.

anyways, this was cropped only.

 

[wdwmom2]

From the 1st at DL, this was hand held as I didn't have the tripod with me. Where we were didn't have a great background or anything either, next time I go, I am going to take the tripod and set up in the hub somewhere good to try and get some good shots.

anyways, this was cropped only.

I see a hidden Mickey!!!!!!!

 

[dizneyfreakz]

Here are some of my Disneyland fireworks photos on here : www.jamlez.com/disneyland/trips

 

[Amy]

Here are mine from tonight's show. All were shot on a Canon S3 IS using the Night Snapshot mode:

This one is my favorite:

 

[Groucho]

My new (well, a month or two old) La Crosse charger is misbehaving so I had a dud battery in each of my sets of AAs that I had with me tonight, so I didn't get as many as I might have, but I did get quite a few anyway. They're still on the memory card, maybe in a few days I'll get some online.

However! I do have the shots online that I took last weekend, from my father's boat, which was really doing a lot of rocking in the wind and the waves that night. I started with a tripod, and found myself re-aiming it a lot (as the boat rotated in the water) and finally went handheld. There's some interesting ones in there I think...

The circles on the bottom are the lights from the pier they were shooting the fireworks from, to give you an idea of the amount of movement we had!

There was a carnival going on at the beach...

An artsy shot of part of the boat...

Our fancy updated bridge, part of a big debacle from a couple years ago...

OK, back to fireworks shots. Here's one of my hand-held ones.

 

[Miller1412]

Ours were rained out...so no photos from me, unless I post on the water thread.

 

[S. C.]

Fireworks mode, all hand held. straight from the camera.

 

[mikamah]

Beautiful pictures everyone. Here's some I took with my new xti. I took them all on the auto no flash mode. I just cropped them and resized them.

 

[Reminiscing_Cody]

My first attempt at fireworks, using my new DSLR (Olympus E-510). They were taken from about 2 miles away, 150mm, 4 to 8 second exposures, using a stepstool as a base as I forgot to bring my tripod, oops! That's why I cut the top off some... oh well just practicing for Wishes

 

[Amy]

Beautiful pictures, Cody!

 

[soccerdad4]

Ok... now for a dumb question.. how do you hold the shutter open on a digital camera? Do you have to have a DSLR to do it?

I have a Canon A630, which we just purchased a couple of weeks ago. I tried to shoot the fireworks last night, but failed misserably... I am use to my Pentax K1000 camera for this, but I wanted to try the new digital. Most of the pictures were shot too late. Is this a timing thing I will have to figure out?

Michael