Light painting and fireworks
Light up your night images with these top tips…
Baby, you’re a firework
Instead of a 30-sec exposure, for fireworks you need to shoot between one and 15 secs to capture the explosions, and therefore, instead of a really narrow aperture, you need to shoot at around f/5.6 to f/8 and ISO100-200 for a good exposure. While you’re capturing the fireworks during the display, it’s always worth checking the image histogram after taking each shot. A few blown-out highlights are inevitable (and recoverable in Photoshop), but try not to overexpose the highlights too much, otherwise you’ll lose vital detail in the fireworks. Check that the peak on the right of the histogram isn’t ‘clipped’ by the end of the graph. If clipped, try shooting at f/11 to darken the shots. As with the traffic light trail images, you may need to merge multiple shots to fill each part of the sky with fireworks and colour.
Use a long lens and focus tightly on where the fireworks are exploding for night shots with added impact
Sparks fly
Light painting is great fun. This shot is created by putting some fine-gauge wire wool inside a small metal cage made of thick wire, setting the wool on fire, then swinging the cage around on a chain for the sparks to fly. A 30-sec exposure at f/5.6 and ISO100 is a good starting point for this shot.
Spin me right round
For these artistic shots, in Manual mode, choose a narrow aperture, such as f/16, for maximum depth of field, use ISO100 for maximum quality, then set the shutter speed past 30 secs to Bulb. This means the shutter stays open as long as the shutter button is activated. You don’t want to touch the camera with a Bulb exposure, as this could blur the image, so use a remote control. For these swirling light painting shots, use a coloured light wand, or attach fairy lights to a stick and use Hue/saturation in Photoshop!