The Doppler Effect

Fireworks are always a fun part of July 4th festivities. Capturing fireworks in a photo, isn’t always quite as fun unless you know what you’re doing. Here are some tips (via Lifehacker) to ensure you have some awesome photos from your weekend festivities. While you don’t necessarily need an SLR camera to get good fireworks pictures, you’ll need some knowledge of your cameras features besides it’s automatic point-and-shoot mode.

• Stabilization - Photographing fireworks means shooting in a dark environment. Most people don’t have hands steady enough to prevent blurry pictures even with auto-stabilization turned on. Ideally you should use a tripod but you can also rest the camera against a stable surface like a table or railing given your position relative to the show.
• Exposure - Because you’ll be shooting at night, you’ll want your exposure turned up to capture the full “bloom”. An exposure of at lest 1 second and under 5 should do the trick. Because of the increased exposure, making sure your camera is motionless during capture is extra important
• No Flash - Your camera’s flash is useless for anything beyond a few feet in front of the lens. Why would you try to capture the explosion’s firey glow with more light anyways? Seems like common sense.
• Low ISO - To keep your pictures looking crisp, turn your ISO setting as low as you can. This prevents any speckles or pixelation in your pictures.
• Focus - Prefocus your camera so your camera doesn’t spend an extra second trying to autofocus. Typically the brightness and smoke confuses the autofocus anyways.

Hopefully you’ll get some awesome photographs with these tips. For more suggestions on photographing fireworks, check out this article at 365 Days [and learning].