4th of July Photos

With the 4th of July coming up I thought sharing a couple of tips on photographing fireworks displays could be fun. The biggest thing that can make photographing fireworks complicated is that you are shooting in a low light situation with a extremely slow shutter speed which means the least little movement to the camera will show up. if you have a basic camera, you should check your presets and see if there is a fireworks setting. This is becoming a regular feature on basic camera presets. It is also showing up on a few DSLR cameras.

If you have a DSLR camera shooting in manual mode is the best way to photograph fireworks.

Here are the settings that you would want to use to get the photos

ISO 100 or 200

Apature f/11 or f/16

Shutter - This one is a little more tricky. If you set it to a bulb, manual release and use a remote you would hold the shutter for 2-5 seconds. The camera has to be on a  tripod for this. you could also set it for a 2-3 sec shutter speed. This is a long exposure but it should work well.

Do not use Auto Focus. Set your focus at infinity

Set Daylight White Balance

Turn off Noise Reduction

NO FLASH

Needed Equipment

Camera, Charged Battery, Tripod, Remote Shutter release, Memory Card

If you have a program at home to edit RAW photos this is the best format to shoot since it gives you the most flexibility for editing and manipulating your photos.

Hopefully you are able to take your camera out and get some photos of the celebrations near you using these tips. After the 4th I will show you what I come up with. This will be my first time using these tips so it will be fun for me to experience this myself as well.

So grab your camera, head out have fun and take some photos. Remember to be safe in all your activities as we begin to approach the 4th of July weekend.

The image below is not mine, it is used from freeimages.com