Hints for taking good photos fireworks

[peteratworkinqld]

hi Guys

Any hints on how to take nice shots of fireworks.

Brisbane River Fire is on this weekend.

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks

Peter

[rflower]

Hi,

A. Tripod
B. Get there earlyish to get a good spot
C. Try and get some info about where they will be setting them off.

Set you camera to manual focus and focus on infinity (or something a fair way away)

Here is a link to a post I made after Australia Day. There are other posts on this forum, and places like flickr.com
http://www.dslrusers.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=30638&hilit=fireworks

ISO 100
Aperture F14 and upwards.
Exposure anything from 2-3 seconds - 30 seconds.

For longer exposures, get something black (cardboard, bag, pouch etc), and hold in front of lens for a period, and then drop it for a couple of seconds, and then put it up again. Continue doing this to get a few different bursts framed together without overexposing the lot.

Good luck. Have fun. Remember to watch the show as well - don't get caught up just trying to take photos and miss the show.

[StarForge]

Good tips there, especially the part about covering the lens for long exposures

The Royal Adelaide Show is around the corner, I hope to get some shots of fireworks myself, thanks!

[photohiker]

I was there in 2006 and got some Ok shots (and a lot of duds too)

It's important to get a good position. I was at Kangaroo point and had a reasonable view of the storey bridge and the apartments over the river.

Not having had much experience, I tried all sorts of stuff, and looking at the results, the best firework shots are definitely between about 5 and 30 seconds exposure 100 ISO, and F8 or more. Manual focus, and prefocus at about 10m or so, depending on lens - check a hyperfocal calc if you are not sure (google) Be aware that just about every window is lit, and these will blow out easily on a very long exposure. Not a lot you can do about that. The other thing that is dependant on the actual night is smoke - for us, it hung in the air a bit and drifted towards the bridge and obscured the background on a lot of shots.

Around us, they floated some barges in the middle of the river and let a lot off from there. The Storey bridge put on a great display, and some of the buildings opposite had fireworks off their roofs.

Be ready for the FA18 with afterburners towards the end of the show, it really lights the joint up.

Enjoy the show, it was great.

Michael

[peteratworkinqld]

Thanks guys for the advise.

Will do a bit of practice before the night so I know what I am doing.

Do you think the best vantage points are up high or down below, I would normally go to the cliffs at Kangaroo point, but was thinking maybe at the bottom of the cliffs near the river shore might be better.

Will my D40 be able to handle all this?

[photohiker]

I can't imagine the D40 will have any problems. The people I was with (about 30 mostly non-photo types) were shooting everything from cheap P&S through to DSLRs. The only people having problems were those with cameras that wouldn't let you turn off the flash and extend the exposure. We had a bit of a P&S fixup clinic going at one stage finding night mode and actually duct taping the flash on a couple of cameras.

The vantage points is a good question. Given only one option, I'd go for the location with an uninterrupted view (no trees, lamp posts etc in the way) It would be nice to have a few alternatives, but the place is just crawling with people, so the chances of being able to move and get a good position are slim. I was in an apartment upstairs, we had a pretty clear view although the waterfront trees got in the way a bit, so I would have liked to get down to the water edge too and pick up some reflections. Maybe, I should have nabbed a waterfront position and moved back to the apartment after a bit, but the fun was in the apartment...

Michael

[Yi-P]

Something essential to add to you bag if you havent done so:

1- tripod
2- cable release (to use BULB mode)
3- a thick black cloth
4- some scotch tapes

Get there early ( or go a day or so before to check out angles and lights at night), do some exposures and get a 'feel' how long the exposure is required for a 'normal night' without the fireworks.

On the night, set camera on tripod, manual mode, shutter all the way down to BULB, plug your cable release into the camera. Sticky tape the black cloth to your lens.

Trick is, set the camera to engage exposure, start exposing your 'background' half way through and just cover your lens up, wait until you get the firework shooting up the sky and 'raise the curtain'... it should capture the entire explosion of the firework and yet keeping your 'background' well exposed.
Same trick applies if fireworks is at its heats, start the exposure and cover up the lens and wait until you see the next series of blasts coming. You can now get few blasts of firework in your exposure. You may need a smaller aperture setting (F16 or so) to accomodate the large amount of light coming through the lens.

Generally I use something like ISO 200 at F/11 and exposure is controlled by how many clusters of firework I want to get in the background.

If you can't find a black cloth, a lens cap should suffice, but this way may force you to remove the lens hood as its harder to put a lens cap on... Make sure you don't move the tripod when doing so.

[gstark]

If you can't find a black cloth, a lens cap should suffice,

This is not something I would do ...

Make sure you don't move the tripod when doing so.

And this is the reason.

Basically, you just need to obscure the lens while your shutter is open but you're not actually making an exposure.

Also, monitor how long you're keeping the shutter open. Sub-30 second times would be the goal, as you need to be careful that your sensor doesn't heat up and cook the image that the sensor is trying to record.

[peteratworkinqld]

Wow guys some great advise, thank you.

I don't have a cable release, where would be the best place to get this for my D40?

[Mr Darcy]

Wow guys some great advise, thank you.

I don't have a cable release, where would be the best place to get this for my D40?

The ML-L3 works on your camera. S/B available almost everywhere. I used one on my D70s & its a great little gadget.
DDPhotographics http://www.d-d-photographics.com.au/nikonslracc.htm#ml-l3sell it for $32 (+PH) I have seen it cheaper elsewhere, but can't quite say where.

BUT it is not really necessary.
Set your camera to 30Sec Exposure & use the Timer Delay feature to open the shutter after you have walked away from it.
You will get a greater proportion of duds this way, as not every shot will have fireworks, but it WILL work.