Fireworks shots? How to setup?

J

Jake

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Hey guys, I'm a n00b with cameras.

I've got a primo spot to take pics of fireworks over/through a city skyline and I'm looking for some tips on how to setup the camera.

I'm going to be borrowing my parent's Olympus C-4040z, it isn't uberbadass but it has more manual controls than I know about.

Just me guessing, but no flash (duh!), longer exposure time, manual focus (on what though? I'm not that fast)
 
Got a tripod? You want to drop the ISO, manual focus out to infinity, stop down to f/11ish, and expose for several seconds. Use your histogram to figure out how long you'll need to go or how much you need to stop down.
 
No flash, not like it'd help for things hundreds of feet away, plus fireworks are bright enough.

One way to do fireworks is to use a Bulb setting so that you can shoot an exposure that lasts as long as the firework does and get all the light trails and such. You'll have to use a tripod for this. You'll also want to use a smaller aperture, maybe an F/11 or F/16, though I have seen some fireworks shots shot with F/3.5 or F/5.6.

For the above, you'll want a tripod.

If you have supersteady hands or vibration reduction, you could even try handholding. Here's some handheld fireworks shots.

ISO speed: 400
Exposure time: 1/4 second
F-number: F/5.6
Focal Length: 28mm
fwork.jpg


however, with such an exposure, you won't be catching the full light trail, just the light during that exposure time you've selected. The above pic was done with an IS lens too.
 
Yes I forgot to mention I do have a sturdy tripod. Some Bogen/Manfrotto one I got from my Dad's work.

I'll need to cram on how to use the damn camera its been that long.

sorry complete idiot, histogram?

BTW nice pic BillLeeLee
 
Since you are on a camera with a 1/1.8 inch sensor, I'd recommend staying between f/5.6 and f/1.8 to avoid running into issues with diffraction.

The actual "f-stop" I'd recommend starting out in your case would be f/5.6. If you think the pictures are coming out a little bit too dark you can move it to f/4.0, and maybe even go to f/2.8.

Also learn how to set the manual focus distance on your camera. You will want to set it to infinity focus, or the largest distance it can focus to such as 20 meters. You need to use the manual focus feature because the auto-focus feature doesn't work in the dark and it will just slow the camera down and make you miss the fireworks.

Now you may be able to change something called ISO. I'd recommend starting with ISO 100, but if the pictures are too dark for your liking and your "f-stop" is at f/2.8, then you should start moving the ISO to ISO 200 or maybe even ISO 400. What this does is amplifies the signal from the digital sensor to make the scene brighter. It also amplifies noise, but it should be okay at ISO 200.


Finally there are shutter speeds to consider.

You will want longer/slower shutter speeds so the fiery sparks from the fireworks can create trails. BillLeeLee's picture shows this very well. So you can start experimenting with a 1/4 second shutter speed, and then taking a picture right when the firework explodes. (you may need to push the button ahead of time if your camera is slow or has a long delay) Or at any other time you think could make a cool picture.

If your shutter speed is too fast, you'll see small bright points that are quite boring because they're frozen in the air. The slower shutter speeds and the fluidly explosive motion they show are much more attractive :)



I'm not sure if I'll get off of work in time to take pictures of the fireworks show that's perhaps 2 hours away from my house (2.5 hours from work), but who ever gets back first and processes their pictures first for display will get the privilage of making this year's July 4th Fireworks thread. Good luck :D
 
Heh, I'm still wondering whether to brave it in Boston or stay around for my local fireworks show instead. Boston will have, oh, 500K people on the Charles River by 10AM on the 4th, and I don't even want to think of the traffic back home after the fireworks at 10PM. :eek: :D

At least here I can be far away and still catch the fireworks, and not worry about traffic.
 
BillLeeLee said:
Heh, I'm still wondering whether to brave it in Boston or stay around for my local fireworks show instead. Boston will have, oh, 500K people on the Charles River by 10AM on the 4th, and I don't even want to think of the traffic back home after the fireworks at 10PM. :eek: :D

At least here I can be far away and still catch the fireworks, and not worry about traffic.
Click to expand...

Didn't realize you were in the area. I'll be watching the show from either Boston or Cambridge, depending on what my friends want to do.
 
With your camera, you don't have a "bulb" mode, and there's no way to hook up a cable release, even if you did have that. However, you do have the ability to put it in shutter priority (or full-manual) mode. Hopefully you also have the remote control for it, too. You'll want use that to trip the shutter instead of hitting the button on the camera, which (even on a tripod) will cause vibrations.

I would start out at about one second for the exposure, then work up to maybe three or four seconds, depending on how much is happening the sky. If you get a ton of fireworks going off, you can go back down to shorter exposures as BillLeeLee showed.

Bring plenty of storage media and shoot lots of photos! It's very difficult to tell which ones will come out well. The few times I've tried so far, I've always been surprised which ones really worked. Often it turned out that the simpler displays looked better than the ones in which dozens of fireworks were going off.

Obligatory photo:

 
I also got an Olypus digital, but mine is the C-4000. having a bit of a hard time learning the manual settings on this thing :( (also a newbie as well :p). instead, I'll be using my N90s for shooting fireworks, but I also got a question though, what's a good lens to use? right now I have a 28-105mm f/4, 50mm f/1.8, and 19-35mm f/3.5 lenses. I already have the tripod and cable release, so I just need a suggestion on what lens to use :). thanks.
 
Bleed said:
what's a good lens to use? right now I have a 28-105mm f/4, 50mm f/1.8, and 19-35mm f/3.5 lenses.
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Of those three, I would choose the 19-35mm, unless your 28-105mm is very significantly sharper. I used the 18-35mm that we have at work for my last set of shots, and it seemed to have just the right range. I was quite close to the fireworks, though -- as close as it was possible to get, actually -- and looking up into the sky at about a 30-45 degree angle.
 
For fireworks, you'll want to to use a lens with wide angles to frame the scene loosely since you don't know how high up the fireworks will go. I think you'd want to use either the 18-35 or the 28-120 depending on your location. If location really allows you to capture the area very well, then any of them would work.
 
I see. I'l probably get as close as possible if i can. thanks very much for help guys :D, I really appreciate it.

Horse and BillyLee: very nice pictures :D.
 
I just checked the EXIF for the photo I posted up there.
  • ISO 100
  • f/11
  • 16" (clearly incorrect)
  • 18mm
I suspect it just entered 16 seconds because it was in bulb mode. I used a pneumatic shutter release, and it was probably about 4 to 8 seconds.

bored-sarcasm, you may be able to get decent results with the settings you suggested, but I just don't see any reason to be at ISO 400. I also think 1/4-1/8" isn't going to give you much motion in the fireworks; just picture the photo that BillLeeLee posted and cut all of the traills in half.

The only problem I had with the long exposures was that the smoke of the fireworks would tend to get lit up. Generally, though, it was dark enough that a little bit of levels or curves adjustment could almost totally remove it without affecting the actual fireworks significantly.
 
this gonna sound very stupid, but how do you set your focus to infinity?
 
Bleed said:
this gonna sound very stupid, but how do you set your focus to infinity?
Click to expand...

What camera do you use? If you use an SLR, your lens should probably have a focus distance ring. Some lenses do not however.

If you use a non-SLR, it probably depends on whether your camera can manually focus or not. (I think, I haven't used non-SLR digicams much).

Although many digicams have a fireworks shooting mode if you don't have the ability to manually control settings, I think.
 
I'll be using my N90s for shooting fireworks tonight w/ 28-105mm lens. thanks very much :D.
 
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