Clicking Fireworks

Whether it is Deepawali (Festival of lights) or Fourth of July it means Fun, Food and Fireworks. However fireworks photography is not as hard as you have been led to believe. I usually shoot fireworks with camera on tripod because to capture this magnificent light work we need a slow enough shutter speed to capture the falling light trails. Few things which needs to be kept in mind while shooting Fireworks

• Framing: It is hard to guess the exact location where fireworks are going to explode so it is better to take wider shot and then crop the pics.
• Focus: Again for the same reason it is hard to focus so turn off camera's auto focus mode. Either prefocus or set to landscape mode for infinite focus. 

• Support and Eliminating Shake: Tripods or other sturdy support are a must for fireworks photography. Even the best image stabilization technology is unlikely to be able to give you a rock solid image.
• Zoom lens: Use a zoom lens (ideally 200mm or more) so you can get in tight and capture just fireworks themselves.

•  Aperture and Shutter speed settings: Usually it is recommended to shoot in two settings Shutter Speed set to 4 seconds and Aperture to f/11. Fire a test shot and fine tune these two settings to get the desired pics.

• If you want fireworks and the background (like temple in pic), then use a wider lens.
  

• Blending two image: Two seperate photos one of temple (wider lens) and other of fireworks (zoom lens) and then combine them together using Photoshop.
  
  
  
  
  

More about  Fireworks Photography