Fireworks Photography Tips for the Fourth of July or Canada Day

Fireworks photography tips is an often searched phrase around certain holidays or local festivals throughout the year as photographers want to know the best way to photograph fireworks.

Fourth of July, Canada Day, Australia Day, National Day, New Years Eve or your own countries national holiday are only a few celebrations where brilliant fireworks are on display.

You’ll want to capture the fireworks going off, of course, make sure your exposure is correct and then design an amazing composition that’s out of the ordinary.

There are actually quite a few impressive displays of fireworks around the world including Mount Rushmore, South Dakota USA, another in Dubai, UAE with the worlds tallest building as a backdrop and of course the Diwali ‘Festival of Lights’ with a huge fireworks display.

Whatever the reason or celebration, here are some tips for photographing fireworks.

Fireworks Photography Tips

Fireworks captured bursting and streaking over water with city and bridge ISO 100, f/8, 8 seconds — ISO 100, f/8.0, for 8 seconds

Fireworks photography is about doing three main things well, they are:

Capturing the bursts at the right moment
Getting the exposure right to make them look spectacular
Composition for impact

So here are a few tips for for each of those things so you can bring home some awesome fireworks images from New Years.

Capturing the fireworks bursting in air

Here are some specific tips to capture the fireworks bursting in the air above or in front of you.

Expose for between 4 and 12 seconds, that will allow you to capture a few bursts of light and their trails (nice umbrella shape).
Take lots of images early to avoid having too much smoke in your shots later on in the show.
During the finale use a shorter exposure, as the bursts will be more frequent and may overexpose your shots.
Use a tripod and a remote trigger so you aren’t touching the camera and it’s good and steady for the long exposures.
Listen as they release the fireworks for that distinctive whistle. Press the release as they are going up, just before they hit their peak and open. Time it so you can get more than just one burst in your shots, but not too many as it will get too bright.
Set your focus on the city lights before the show starts. That will be far enough away to get the fireworks in focus as well, just about at infinity but not quite on the focus scale. Then turn off autofocus so it stays there (or use back button focus to lock it if you know that technique). You do not want your camera attempting to refocus for every shot!

fireworks captured bursting over water and then streaking through the night sky camera settings 17mm lens, ISO 100, f/8.0, 8 second exposure — 17mm lens (on full frame camera), ISO 100, f/8.0, 8 second exposure.

Getting the exposure right

Use a low ISO like 100 or 200. It will make the colors more saturated and you’ll have less noise in your images.
Set your shutter speed so the camera times the shots for you, start with out five seconds.
Set your aperture to get a good exposure, so you aren’t overexposing the city lights, and let the dark areas go black. Use f/8 to get good exposure on firework trails. A wider aperture will make the trails wider and brighter, but less colorful, and using a smaller aperture will make them fainter (thinner).
Turn OFF long exposure noise reduction!!! This one is very important because what it does it your camera takes a second exposure of the same length that’s all black, and merges it with your shot. But you can’t shoot or see a preview of your image while it’s doing that. When shooting fireworks, you want to be able to shoot a couple, see what you’re getting, and adjust exposure and composition if necessary. So unless you want to be frustrated and get half as many shots as you’d like – turn this setting to off.
Take a test shot before they start the show to check your exposure (use the histogram). Then retest every few minutes if the sky if getting darker. If it’s already fully dark out, your test shot should give you all you need to fire away.

Getting the exposure set correctly for fireworks display by doing a test shot ISO 100, f/10, for 5 seconds — Test shot: ISO 100, f/10, for 5 seconds (see images above for exposures during the show – I had to adjust a bit as the sky was darker then but this got me close).

Compose your shot for impact

Get there early to get a good spot and know where they are being set off from. I’ve been travelling to foreign cities and have missed getting the shot I wanted because I was in the wrong place. Find out for sure and stake our your spot early. Dress warmly if it’s chilly and take a hot beverage in a thermos.
Plan ahead and leave enough space up high for the bursts to move into.
Shoot both horizontal and vertical images for variety (see images above for examples)
Get the crowd in a few shots too. To add some depth to your image set up so you can see some of the people watching the show, it’s adds a human element as well (see image below)
Try some tighter close-up shots too. See below for examples. Remember you may have to adjust your focus if you do this.

compose your photo by using the crowds in your fireworks photography to add a human element and give perspective — Get the crowd in the shot for added depth and human element. ISO 200, f/8.0, 5 seconds.

horizontal photo of fireworks bursting overhead photographed with a tight composure to make an abstract photo — Shoot some tighter shots to make some abstract images. ISO 200, f/22, 2.5 seconds.

tight shot of red fireworks star burst overhead shot horizontally — ISO 200, f/22, 2.5 seconds.

If you get handed lemons – make lemonade.

So remember above when I said that I ended in the wrong place a couple of times?

Did I grumble about it?

No, I just readjusted the kind of shot I wanted to get and took it as an opportunity to get something different than the standard fireworks shots you usually see.

Test shot for anticipated location of the fireworks display with compostion including a bridge and city behind — I set up here thinking the fireworks would be high enough to show up just over the bridge.

Fireworks were not high enough and my photo wasn't very good — Ooops, wrong! (This one was shot at 17mm)

Clearly that wasn’t going to work.

On top of that I was on a floating dock that was moving – also NOT the best choice!

Why did I end up here? Well it was not my own home city (this is Portland, OR), we got there late, there was no parking for miles, and we scrambled just to get there on time to see anything.

So what I failed to do was get there early enough!

Then, I tried coming in a bit tighter on the composition and got this:

A new composition with a tigher shot with fireworks bursting and creating stars behind the bridge showing the crowd in silhouette but still not great — Better, but still not great. This one was shot at 40mm.

So I figured what did I have to lose and cranked my zoom lens (Canon 24-105mm f/4 lens) way in and got these:

Tighter composition now fills the photo with bridge and fireworks making the best of the situation ISO 200, f/9, 3.2 seconds - shot at 75mm. — ISO 200, f/9, 3.2 seconds – shot at 75mm.

beautiful fireworks streaking out from it's burst with bridge and people for effect ISO 200, f/8, 2.5 seconds - shot at 90mm. — ISO 200, f/8, 2.5 seconds – shot at 90mm.

Okay now we have lemonade!! That is much better and way more interesting than the first couple of shots, and it’s not the kind of fireworks image you see every day. I was happy with that.

Here’s another example.

fireworks bursting too low and obstructed by bridge in the foreground — Show up here thinking the fireworks would be on the side of the bridge closer to me, and higher up. NOT! Shot with a 70mm lens.

Bridge silhouette captured with red glow from fireworks exploding behind it by zooming in tigher — So I cranked my zoom way in again for this shot, to make it more interesting. Shot with a 160mm lens.

a fun shot of spectators shooting off their own fireworks — Remember the include the crowd tip? ISO 100, f/5.6, for 13 seconds. Needed a longer exposure to get more of the people’s fireworks in the image.

Then something magical happened, these people all poured in and started setting off their own fireworks on the beach.

So I quickly backed up and recomposed to include them (and for our own safety, they were a bit crazy, firing them every which way) to get this shot which I think also really works.

To me, it shows the fun of the event and the participation of the people attending, not just the main show, which you can also see in behind the bridge still.

Happy Holidays

To make sure you get your best holiday fireworks photo’s just remember the tips you learned here.

Make sure you’ve got the right camera settings to expose for the type of fireworks starbursts you want, get the exposure right and get creative with your composition. If it comes to it, make the most out of a bad situation by changing perspectives or go in tighter with a longer lens.

Now get out there and photograph some fireworks, and have the very happiest New Year, Fourth of July, Canada Day, Australia Day, National Day, Diwali or whatever you’re celebrating possible!

Cheers,

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Fireworks Photography Tips for the Fourth of July or Canada Day