Thanks to our guest blogger Kevin Simpson’s posting on “how to shoot fireworks,” I thought it would be a good idea to rehash last year’s posting on the subject with a few tips that I have learned since that time. The Fourth of July celebrations are just around the corner, and if you have a nice day long celebration planned, here are some helpful tips to keep the photography running smoothly all day.

I often come across several questions (throughout the various photography forums which I like to visit) regarding “how to shoot fireworks photos,” and although I find lots of good information, they are often bits and pieces scattered about. Since I myself have had (what I consider to be) success in shooting fireworks, I thought I would share these helpful tips for those of you who will be bringing your cameras along to the Fourth of July celebrations.

Daytime Shooting:
If you are planning a picnic in the park or a day at the beach, there are a few things to keep in mind in order to get the best possible photos. If the weather is co-operating with you, and you have a nice sunny day to shoot, be sure to bring along your circular polarizers or ND filters for your lenses. They will not only help cut down the glare of the hot sun, but they will also help you achieve those deep blue skies. I would also recommend bringing your tripod for the evening, but leaving it in the car during the day. It’s not going to be necessary for your daytime shooting, and will only get in either your or other people’s way. Chances are wherever you go to celebrate, it’s going to be busy and we want to make sure that we are carrying as little gear as possible. 

If you are celebrating the daytime with loved ones, slap on a nice 50mm or your favourite portrait lens, and take as many candid shots as you can of your family and friends having a ball without the standard “pose for the camera” shots (although sometimes those can be fun too – especially the goofy ones). You’ll find that shooting these types of photos captures the memorable spirit of the celebration. If you are celebrating with children, don’t forget to switch your camera’s shooting mode to “continuous” or “burst” mode and fire off rapid successions of shots of the kids playing. When you go back to preview them, you will find some great expressions captured.

Night Shooting (Fireworks):
As the daylight begins to fade away, you may want to break out your flash unit for some nice portraits against the sunset, along with your tripod for stability. While there is still some available light as the sun sets, you will find that your portraits and scenic shots of the celebrations and location will have a great tone to the images, thanks to the magic of the low angled lighting from the sunset. Now is probably a good time to also stake out your spot for shooting the upcoming fireworks!

Bring Your Tripod:
First and foremost, the single most important thing you need to have when shooting fireworks is a tripod. Whether you are shooting with a point and shoot camera, or a fancy digital SLR, you simply won’t be able to hold the camera steady enough by hand due to the relatively long exposure times required in fireworks photography. Tripods are a MUST! With that being said, you should also remember that if you are planning on brining a tripod to an event such as the Fourth of July (or any fireworks celebrations for that matter), there are bound to be plenty of people all trying to claim enough space to stand or sit comfortably, so you’ll want to go a little early to set up your tripod before the crowds arrive.

Switch to Manual Focus:
Before we get into shutter speeds and apertures, the one important thing to do first is switch your camera to MANUAL focus, then focus to infinity. In very low lighting situations such as shooting fireworks, your camera’s autofocus is going to have a heck of a time trying to decide where exactly to focus, plus you want your entire scene to be as sharp as possible. Setting your camera to focus on infinity in manual mode will ensure that your shots are as focussed as possible, regardless of your zooming and framing of your scene.

Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO:
When shooting fireworks, you’ll achieve great results if you shoot with a fairly long exposure time. If you are using a point and shoot digital camera, most of them have a dedicated “fireworks” mode or setting. If you are shooting with a digital SLR, you’ll want to use anywhere from a 4-5 second exposure, shooting at an aperture of f11 or even f16. You also want to eliminate any noise in your images, so I would recommend keeping your ISO setting down to 100 or 200 maximum. To achieve the best results, you will be best off to change your camera’s mode to MANUAL so that you can set these exposures and shutter speeds manually. One of the best tools to have with you (in addition to your tripod) would be a shutter release cable. That way, you can set up the initial framing of your shots, and control the shutter while still getting to watch those beautiful fireworks. Also, a shutter release cable would be especially userful if you want to use your camera’s bulb mode to capture even longer exposures.

Another experiment you can do, is to set your aperture very small, say at f22 or even f32, and shoot with an exposure time of 20-30 seconds. You’ll be able to catch several fireworks in the frame, and the results can be outstanding!

Adjusting Settings:
Here’s how you can adjust your settings to achieve the best results.

Fireworks too bright/dark: Adjust your aperture to control the brightness. Smaller apertures (higher f-numbers) will darken the fireworks if they are too bright. Opening the aperture wider (lower f-numbers) will brighten them if they appear too dark.

Firework trails too long/short: This is where you adjust the shutter speed. If your trails are too long, then your shutter is open too long. You can increase the shutter speed for shorter streaks of light, or lengthen it to make those light trails longer.

Breaking the Rules: Sometimes breaking the rules can work extremely well too. Try super long exposures (but don’t forget to close your aperture down) or very short exposures (open your aperture here) and you’ll get some creative shots!

Framing Your Shots:
In framing your shots, it will all depend on the type of photos you are after. If you like the closeup and tight shots of the fireworks blast as in the above image, you will want to bring a zoom lens which can go to at least 200mm. That will allow your camera to get up close and personal with those fireworks. If you prefer to capture the fireworks in a landscape or “entire scene” view, bring a nice wide angle lens. Here’s a look at what a wide angle lens would be likely to capture:

Last year, I brought along a 16-45mm wide angle for the above shot, and a 50-200mm lens for some closeups such as the first image in this posting. If you haven’t learned to switch your lenses on the fly quickly, then spend some time the night before (July 3rd) practicing. I would spend about 5 min with your zoom lens to get some cool closeups, then switch to your wide angle for the rest of the event. The finale moment of any fireworks show is usually quite spectacular, and you’ll want to capture the scene as a whole.

Post Processing Fireworks Photography:
As Kevin mentioned in yesterday’s posting on shooting fireworks, you may find that as the show goes on, there is lots of smoke in the air. While this can sometimes produce some cool shots too, you may find that it only increases the amount of reflected light in your scene, leaving the skies in your fireworks shots looking a bit hazy. Post processing fireworks photography is probably one of the most easy types of photography to work with. All you really need to do is make your skies black, and your fireworks vibrant. If you are processing in RAW, you can either use your “Blacks” slider or curves to darken the shadow areas of your images. I personally prefer to take my skies all the way to a nice deep black, but of course your preference prevails in your own photography. Next, I like to boost the saturation and/or vibrance of the colours up approximately +20 for each. I find that it gives the firework trails a very nice pop, and vibrant colour blend. Lastly, all that’s really left to do is some sharpening. Sharpen your photos preferably in Photoshop or Elements, and you are finished – How simple is that!

I hope these quick and easy tips will come in handy, and help you to further enjoy your Fourth of July holiday weekend by snapping some fantastic fireworks photography!

Happy Canada Day! As many of you know, today being Canada Day is also not that far off from our good neighbours to the south with the 4th of July celebrations just around the corner. With both of these festive occassions come the beautiful fireworks displays as we party it up. What better time of year is there to bring out a picnic and your camera for some fireworks fun; a perfect photo opportunity! We have a guest blogger, Kevin Simpson, who was kind enough to submit this tutorial on:

How to Photograph Fireworks – By Kevin Simpson.
It’s that time of year again. For some of us it’s fireworks time.

I don’t know about you, but when I started out trying to photograph this majestic event I had the worst, dismal, awful time doing it. I read tutorial after another one. Nothing seemed to work. What I do agree with: Using a tripod of course, is a must. Other than that, I mostly don’t…

Read more…

There are many ways to have your work published in places like magazines, newspapers, websites, etc… Today I am going to offer you a chance to have your photo published, and give you some tips on just how you can improve your chances of being the top choice in photo contests. 

Participating in photo challenges and assignments for various photography magazines is an excellent way to “get your foot in the door.” Once you have been published a few times, you start to build a small portfolio of accomplishments for yourself. Add that to the fact that there is no greater satisfaction and confidence booster than seeing your photo in print for the first time.

Stick to the Theme!
The important thing to remember when submitting photos for assignments and contests is that you stick to the theme. More often than not, publications will run photography contests and participants will deviate from the theme of the contest, thus making them inelligable! The best way to approach an assignment is to consider the theme, and think of ways that you may photograph that theme – differently. That’s the key to winning challenges and assignments, and ultimately having your photo published.

See What Others are Doing, and Do Yours Better.
This is one of the best ways, when possible, to make your photos stand out from the crowd. When you are given a theme for a photography challenge, it’s best to think of a unique way to photograph that particular theme. If the theme is “Landscapes” you can bet there will be hundreds of photos of mountains, plains, etc… but how could you take a photo that would stand out amongst many similar images. The key is to think outside the box, while inside the theme. Think about some of the things we’ve done in our previous challenges to get your creative juices going. Things like getting creative with depth of field, shutter speeds, interesting and different angles, etc. By doing something different and making your image stand out from the crowd, you are more likely to have your image noticed.

Follow the Format!
The last piece of advice, and one of the most important, is to follow the format. Often times, contest judges and editors receive so many submissions, that going through them can be quite a lot of time and work. If there are image guidelines for size, resolution, file format, or file sizes, then you should make sure your image conforms to all of them. Guidelines are put in place to help streamline the judging process and the publishing process, so having your image thrown out over something like that is just plain silly! Following the guidelines makes it that much easier for your photo to be chosen.

Once again, we run bi-weekly contests in our forum and over at our Flickr group, giving you the opportunity to have your work published in our magazine – The PhotographyBB Online Magazine which is read by tens of thousands. Good luck with your entries, and above all – have fun with it!

Watermark Droplets: 

You may have seen several ways of watermarking your photos, and you probably use a handful of them. They need to be resized, repositioned, and adjusted based on your image’s orientation and resolution. I’m going to teach you two techniques which will hopefully change all of that. The first is how to create a watermark that will show up in the same position on every image you apply it to. The second (if you are using CS or higher) will be how to use something called a “Droplet” so that you can enjoy a cup of coffee while your computer does the work of watermarking all the photos you want, with ONE simple mouseclick! Read more…

Here’s a fantastic tutorial brought to us from our friends over at PhotoshopSupport.com.

“Adobe Camera Raw is the gateway for opening Raw images into the main editing space of Photoshop, but Adobe Camera Raw is also a great space for optimising images quickly and easily. Many of the basic tasks such as straightening and cropping images, correcting exposure and adding a vignette can all be achieved faster and more easily than performing these same tasks in the main editing space of Photoshop. If you have not yet explored the ACR interface or are having trouble breaking old habits then the following tutorial is designed to make you think again.”

Click here for the full tutorial and helpful tips.