In my country, although it is now prohibited from setting off fireworks and firecrackers by the people, during major festivals and celebrations, some cities always conduct fireworks performances to show celebrations. If you have ever taken photos of fireworks displays and are not very satisfied with the photos you took and want to know what went wrong, then I will provide you with some ideas - from the most basic knowledge to some simple tricks to help you capture the beauty of that moment.
Tripod and lens
First of all, you'd better use a tripod because you need to stabilize your camera (and the same with your phone), otherwise the long exposure required to capture the fireworks track (from 2 to 10 seconds or more), and the camera shakes during the period will only cause the shooting to fail. The jitter caused by the moment you press the shutter can also blur the photos, so the problem can be solved by some remote method, whether it is a shutter cable, remote control, or phone.
Next, you need one or two shots to provide multiple framing options. Depending on where the camera is set and the obstacles ahead, the zoom lens will make your composition just right. It can also give you a variety of options in showing live images: the telephoto focal length has the ability to compress the scene space, which can make fireworks and urban landscape elements more in line with each other, while the wide-angle field of view will allow you to include more live content, such as the audience, making the shooting more lively.
shooting settings requirements
From the perspective of camera settings, shooting fireworks may be challenging. First, I recommend you put your camera on a tripod so that you can use the lowest ISO. This helps your camera capture as much light as possible, minimizing noise and maximizing dynamic range. ISO improves only brightens the tones, which often shoots fireworks white. If you want to make the sky and city scenery less dim, it is best to selectively brighten them in post-processing rather than adding ISO to increase exposure to all tones in your image.
Then: shoot in Raw format. This gives you maximum post-processing flexibility in terms of exposure to tones and colors of various tones (including white balance adjustments).
When shooting fireworks, the exposure settings and dynamic range are very important. The fireworks are bright, so you don’t want to overexpose them to make them white; the city and the sky are mostly dark, and you don’t want to shoot them in darkness. In fact, the charming blue in the sky can add beautiful colors to the image. If you shoot in Raw format (of course, larger sensor cameras have higher dynamic range), you can give you maximum post-production flexibility, such as restoring the colors in brighter (some overexposure) fireworks and brightening the dark blue tones in the sky, and also balancing the warm colors of the fireworks with the blue of the sky by setting a white balance.
How to set the camera
So how should we set the camera? First, after setting the camera to the lowest ISO (usually ISO 100), set the shooting mode to "Manual", and then set the aperture to F8 (it can be smaller) to get enough depth of field (the sharper range of the image in the picture, the greater the depth of field, the clearer the scene in front and behind the focus in the picture, and conversely, the scene outside the focus will be blurred). When you start shooting (the timing is your own, and you can decide according to the content you need to shoot. You can use the remote control to trigger the shutter to make the camera begin to accumulate background exposure to capture some sky blue and city lights. After the fireworks exploded, continue to capture some traces and end the exposure with the remote control. This way, you can capture enough fireworks to get the desired pattern in a light-filled deep blue sky. The image will save any other exposure adjustment data used to balance the sky, foreground and fireworks for later processing of Raw format images.
Use this method, you can capture the right amount of fireworks for the desired effect. For example, this image, I stopped exposure very early to capture some interesting trajectories of the fireworks.When fireworks are fleeting and fireworks are everywhere, you should end the exposure as early as possible (shorter shutter speeds), otherwise the fireworks trajectory will be more chaotic.
By the way, the earlier you start shooting, the less clouds and gas interference generated by the previous explosions in the final photo - there is already a lot of smoke in the photo above!
Stay away from fireworks performance
At this point, I have shared the basic principles of firework shooting. Here we share some simple tips. We can try it to improve firework photography to make some differences.
Often friends shoot fireworks, they want to get close to the fireworks show or directly below the fireworks show. This method works well if your goal is to capture close-ups of fireworks, but lacks other visual elements, and the fireworks over Beijing look the same as those over other cities. Trying to stay away from the fireworks show scene and using telephoto lenses to shine fireworks on the city skyline or landscape can provide a certain background for the photo and create a local feature.
Try some special methods
Adjust the focus when exposing for a long time, which is a novel way to shoot fireworks. One way to do this is to focus at the start of an exposure of 1 or 2 seconds and quickly refocus after the initial explosion. This will give your image a flower or even marine life -like appearance.
Be good at using video
We can also use the camera to provide high frame speed video and try to shoot fireworks, and then slow down. Slow-motion videos are an easy way to get some really cool shots. Many cameras can shoot video at 60 or even 120 fps, and some can even reach speeds above 960 fps.
Add the live audience element
We can also take a step back, add the characters to the composition, and use fireworks as the background. Here, people are an integral part of the entire picture, so a smaller aperture is needed to increase the depth of field to keep both the viewer and the fireworks focused. We can also get closer to the audience to leave more distance between the audience and the fireworks and use a fast aperture to keep the audience or fireworks out of focus for creative effects.
Either way, if you want to put the characters in the composition, you can use a wide-angle lens to include the audience you need and create a separation or depth between the person in the foreground and the fireworks in the background. For example, the above photo was taken at a 26mm equivalent focal length.
is OK. The firework shooting skills are introduced here first. Photography requires practice, and photography is endless. You can create your favorite shooting method to keep that beautiful moment!
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