The final word
It’s fireworks season, so Joe has some great advice for shooting them successfully
Everybody loves shooting fireworks, says Joe McNally, and he has the ways and means to get it right…
Everybody loves to shoot fireworks. Okay, make a checklist. Camera. Wideangle zoom. Telephoto zoom. Flash cards. Cable release. Spare battery. Tripod. Headlamp and hand-held flashlight. Watch with timer function.
Black card. That’s pretty much the photo kit. Anything to do beforehand? You bet. Scout the location. It’s best to know where they shoot the fireworks from and what the background will be. Also, how big will the display be and how long will it go on for?
Okay, time to frame up. When I shoot fireworks, I always get my frame, plus about 20%. I can always tighten up, but I want to give them room to play. Frame too tight, you’ll have tracer lines of colour going out of the upper part of your photo that will take your viewer’s eye with them.
Even something as splashy as a pyrotechnic display needs context. So perhaps you can frame up with the object that’s being celebrated. Or use the semi-silhouetted crowd as a foreground element. Or boats and bridges out in the water.
F/8 is a reasonable starting point. Over time, you’ll find which settings work for you. Set the shutter to Bulb mode, which keeps the shutter open as long as the release button is pushed. This is absolutely a job for a cable release. At f/8, the shutter will be open for anywhere from four to 15 seconds. (Remember, if you have a foreground element to expose it properly.)
Okay, now set up manual. Fireworks are brighter than you might think, so you don’t need to open the lens really wide.
Some shooters time the launch of the rockets and open their shutter accordingly, keeping it open for, say, eight to 10 seconds, then closing down. This ensures that they will record the path of the pyrotechnic into the night sky and its explosion. Others use a black card. This way, you can keep your shutter open for very lengthy periods of time and record multiple starbursts. You open the shutter, shoot one explosion, cover the lens with the card and wait for the next.
Other bits and pieces… Don’t shoot all night long at one exposure. Also, shoot right away when they start – firework displays can build up a lot of smoke over a series of explosions and you can end up thinking you’re shooting a war zone.