any suggestions for fireworks?

[mikey]

can anyone provide some pointers on shooting fireworks pics?

speed, recommended mode, handheld ok etc.

thx

[9.81]

Hi!

You need real long time (>1 sec.) and AUTO is not suitable. Handheld NOT ok unless you want a 'motion picture'.

Longer times make you capture lots of explosions which enlighten and color the scene underneath (city, woods, whatever...), this can look very nice.

All the settings have to be set and testet depending on surrounding light, brightness and distance of firework and so on.

Test your display in advance, so that you can check the brightness of the picture. My display (S40) seems to display dark scenes lighter than on the computer. This might lead (an it did in my case) to dark pictures.

Just my 2 cent, Peter...

[mikey]

thx peter

it will likely be next july 4th before i try again - took
about 30shots, only 5 were keepers - tried various
settings but main problem was that camera was hand held (as you noted).

[Inactive member 38]

Yeah, you definitely need a tripod to do it well. I sat down on the grass and just swivelled my camera up when I'd see a shell going up. I got several ones that I really liked. The settings I used were: Manual Mode, manual focus set to infinity, apertures from 2.8-8.0 (I found that this doesn't make all that much of a difference in this respect, but I preferred the closed apertures to limit any overexposure of the scene).
Shutter speed: 1/2 sec - 2 sec. I found the best results with a speed of about 1 sec. Changing it to 1.3 enables noise reduction, which is very helpful to the image, you just have to wait a little bit before you can take the next shot.
I also like the results I got from using high contrast, high sharpness, and high saturation all together.

Here's a link to my shots:

http://www.pbase.com/maverick55/fireworks_july_6_2002

[mikey]

some great shots, ben.

thx for the input - it'll put to use at next fireworks opportunity

[Conk]

I did some fireworks pics with an old SLR and used a cable release, tripod and a hat. That way I was able to time my own exposure. Came out fantastic.
However that may may not be the results that you may be looking for.
If you want to actually freeze the image you can't use such a slow speed.