I will be trying, for the first time with a digital camera, to photograph fireworks tonight. I have searched the 'Net for tips, and 3 basic tips come about; 1 - Use a tripod with a preferable remote shutter switch so as to keep all nice and still. 2 - Use a 'bulb' mode or equivalent to open shutter for 1-5 seconds to allow the camera to capture the full burst of the firework. 3 - Use an ISO of 100 and a F8 to F11 setting or an ISO of 200 and a F11 to F22 setting. I will be using my Canon 300D, and a 80-200mm f4.5-5.6 lens and/or a 28-70mm f2.8-4, and a tripod and remote switch to capture the fireworks, and was wondering if anyone had any other useful tips for this type of photographing event. TMG

Try to keep ISO down as longer shutter-times tend to give you more grain - especially at night. If you're not to far away, leave the 80-200 at home, you won't need it. In all other aspects, you already said what's important. Tripod, cable-control and shutter-times depending on the intensity of the fire-works. 1-5 seconds is fine, perhaps start with 1-2 seconds and close the aperture as needed. Don't worry to much .. it's a lot easier as one would think ;-) Have fun! Tom

I still gotta give digital a try when it comes to fireworks. Did manage to get some nice images on slidefilm last year. I'm anxious to see how it turns out. Noise is probably the biggest problem with very long exposures. With the slidefilm I just opened it up and exposed whenever I thought something good came. Having it opened for minutes is no problem with analog :P

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-= Glass Eye Photography =- -= My Rendo Gallery =-

I caught some of natures fireworks tonight! The fireworks show was replaced here by mother nature showing her own! Got a few really decent capture I think... images are uploading as I write this! I dunno about your camera TMG but mine has a fireworks setting under auto, and it works very well. Brenda :)

Here are a few of what I shot tonight. Sharpened luminosity in LAB mode and upped the saturation a tad. I thought it went well for my first firework shoot with this camera. I felt I tended to hold the shutter open too long on some, almost 6 seconds. Right when I got the hang of when to open the shutter, it was over! Well you can't beat a free show. Had a good time and learned some more things. A productive and fun night! Comments welcomed.

another...

another....

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Must have bumped the tripod on this one! :]

One more for now. Thanks for viewing!

Ok, last one, really!

One more note, the horizontal lines in most of the images are power lines that, unfortunately, were in the way. Sorry for the multitude of images, thanks again for viewing. TMG

OK and here is one BEFORE the thunderstorm set in... This was raken on the river btw... I think you did rather well TMG! :)

Thanks! I like the reflection there in your image, that is cool! Sadly, no water where I was at, just those darn power lines!

Just a note -- these images take a while to download for those of us on phone-lines for out Internet access, And with the Renderosity sidebar taking up screen-space they wouldn't want to be any wider. Good pictures. If I knew I was going for digital postwork, I'd not frame so tightly in the camera. Sometimes it can be good if the exposure is enough to capture the difference between sky and horizon, but that depends on the location. It may be my monitor, of course, but getting a little more than the fireworks could greatly improve Nilla's picture. The powerlines might not be too hard to remove. Tedious postwork, perhaps, but they're not unlike scratches.

Fine images from the both of you!!

@TMG: if there's to much grain for ya, try neat-image. Works very fine on those long exposure shots without loosing to much sharpness.

Will check that out, thanks!

Thanks OH so much for posting these. I was gonna ask for us to post the firework photos. But I decided not to. However you still did!! Again thanks. Bsteph