With Your Phone or Camera
• Pick a good spot in advance:
Before the fireworks even start, you should try to get yourself in a
good position: staying upwind of the fireworks will keep the smokey
aftermath of previous blasts from gumming up your shot. If you go to the same spot every year try different areas. I wander around sometimes because there is a carnival where I go and get some interesting foregrounds.
• Stability:
Remember, you're taking photos at night so a little bit of shakiness
from slower shutter speeds can turn your photo into a blurry mess. Brace
yourself against a picnic table or even sit down on the ground if
possible. If you're in a crowd, get cozy with your neighbor for support. I used a little gorilla tripod wrapped around my fold up chair arm.
• Frame before you shoot:
Figure out where in the sky fireworks are blowing up and position your
phone in advance. You don't want to chase the shot, you want your phone
to be in the right place already.
•Try shooting in bursts . Get that Multi shot going you may be off by half a second and last year I only got the one shot of fireworks and lightning.
•Bring extra everything. Make sure you have everything charged and empty. Memory Batteries go quickly and you never know how long it will last and how many photos you want to take. I also bring all my cameras no matter what they are and hand them out to people who didn't bring a camera or when I run out of memory and don't have time to reload.
•Try shooting in bursts . Get that Multi shot going you may be off by half a second and last year I only got the one shot of fireworks and lightning.
• Use the AE/AF lock:
Once your phone's in position, don't take your shot right away. On the
iPhone and many Android phones tapping the screen locks in the exposure
and focus for your shot. Use one firework for metering, and then take
the photo of the next.
• Don't be afraid of portrait mode:
Usually we loathe portrait mode, but here's one instance where it might
capture a better photo. This is not an ordinary snapshot. Depending on
the scenery and your perspective, both landscape and portrait photos
might work well—heck even experiment with crooked angles to see what
gets the best results.
• Don't zoom Or Focus:
We realize that the fireworks are SO FAR AWAY but the digital zoom on
camera phones is only an illusion. Don't use it. You can always crop the
photo later. Autofocus probably won’t be of any use to you and may actually interfere with your shots so I suggest just turning it off. Or try changing the zoom while taking the exposure like this guy
• Keep it native:
Speaking of later, third-party apps introduce additional lag to your
phone's camera. Keep your timing sharp by using your built-in camera
app, and upload it to Instagram later.
• Go video :Sometimes I'll just shoot video and later pause the video and do a
screenshot of that. Way better than the standard blurry photo
• Always use the lowest ISO setting & Highest Quality Setting
In the digital world; long exposures, higher ISO settings, and even higher temperatures can introduce noise into your digital photographs. You can’t avoid long exposures when shooting fireworks, but you can always choose a lower ISO setting. 200 worked for me.
•Review when you can but it can always wait till later. Reviewing helps you tweak your settings but once you get in the groove you need to conserve battery so keep that screen off as long as possible.
• DPhoto Journal recommends three different aperture/ISO combinations that work for many circumstances.
• Digital Photography School instructs us that using "bulb mode" exposure will allow you to tweak the shutter speed perfectly.
• Photodoto really nails the practicality, instructing how to compensate your settings depending on the types of wonky shots you're capturing.
• Always use the lowest ISO setting & Highest Quality Setting
In the digital world; long exposures, higher ISO settings, and even higher temperatures can introduce noise into your digital photographs. You can’t avoid long exposures when shooting fireworks, but you can always choose a lower ISO setting. 200 worked for me.
•Review when you can but it can always wait till later. Reviewing helps you tweak your settings but once you get in the groove you need to conserve battery so keep that screen off as long as possible.
• DPhoto Journal recommends three different aperture/ISO combinations that work for many circumstances.
• Digital Photography School instructs us that using "bulb mode" exposure will allow you to tweak the shutter speed perfectly.
• Photodoto really nails the practicality, instructing how to compensate your settings depending on the types of wonky shots you're capturing.
