Tips for photographing fireworks

Photographing fireworks is easy if you follow these tips.

It is essential to know how to use your camera on its manual setting mode. A tripod is not essential, but does help make consistent images.

Set your ISO/sensitivity to around 800. I prefer to set my aperture between f5.6 and f8. Believe it or not, you do not need to have an overly slow shutter speed. You can get away with 1/60 to 1/30 of a second. The slower the shutter speed you use, the more movement you will see in the image; at slower speeds you will start seeing ambient light and smoke trails in the image.

When the first shell explodes in the sky, I will use that as a guide for my focus and composition. Allow the camera to autofocus on the first explosion, and then set it to manual focus so the camera is not searching between shots/explosions. Once you have set everything up, you can review each image and adjust your settings to get the effect you want.