Fireworks

I’ve never really been able to get photos of fireworks that looked good… until now.  I always put the camera in aperture-priority mode, put it on a tripod, and trusted that the camera would know what to do.  It didn’t.  The reason is similar to why I could never get moon pictures to come out until recently: the camera is trying expose the picture as evenly as possible and the big night sky confuses it.  The solution for fireworks was to prefocus the picture, use a medium aperture (between f/8 and f/11), and put the camera into bulb mode.  The longer I held down the shutter, the more fireworks it would catch.

The pictures below were taken during our trip to Niagra Falls July 2 and 4 and from Dover Night Out this week.  I’m extremely excited about how well the fireworks look in the pictures (that’s why I’m posting so many)!  Now that I know how to get the streaks of light to come out I need to focus on composing the scene.  I find it hard to find out how much to zoom the camera and where to place the frame because the fireworks tend to move.  I end up with a lot of pictures that only show 1/2 of a burst or just the corner of it.  If I zoom out too much I feel like I get too much scenery and too many people’s heads.  But at least I can get the fireworks themselves.

I’m very proud of these.  Take a look for yourself!