Teft’s Blog

I love the 4th of July. It’s a great holiday. It’s the United States birthday, people light off fireworks, and we have backyard barbecues! When I think of photographing fireworks, I usually think of the big ones. This year we had the small variety (California approved) … the whistler, phantom, tuber, snake, jack rabbit, snow ball, golden shower, and on and on and on! I decided to grab my Canon Rebel XT and try out photographing the light show in various apertures and shutter speeds (hand held).

The interesting challenge in photographing fireworks is the tradeoff between long shutter speeds and dynamic range. The fireworks are bright, VERY bright. Too long of a shutter speed and you get huge over-exposed spots. Too fast of a shutter speed and you only capture specks of the explosion.

The other dilemma is the chaotic nature of the fireworks. Composing shots is pure luck, because the composition is constantly changing. So, you end up snapping a ton of shots! I found that composing the entire firework display in the shot really didn’t capture the feel of the fireworks. But, tightly composing the fireworks with and without the base of the firework (combinded with a relatively long exposure) captured the experience of the firework more effectively.

I could have used a tripod while shooting, but it’s so limiting when you’ve got an extremely fast subject, like fireworks. Basically, I had to forget about getting any stationary objects sharp (fireworks base), and focus on capturing the firework’s emotion. Shutter speeds anywhere from 1/8s to 2s help define the path of the firework. The image to the right was captured with a shutter speed of 1/5 of a second.

I took some fast shots, too. The shot to the left was taking with 1/250 of a second shutter speed. It gives the effect of the explosion, but you don’t get the effect of the firework because your mind doesn’t percieve light moving this way.

Try out photographing fireworks next time your around the light shows … It’s like painting with a thousand light sources!