Input Please

I am a newbie to the age of DSLR cameras. I purchased a Canon XSi/450d and it of course came with the kit lens. I also purchased the Canon EF-S55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS lens. I am planning on trying my hand at shooting some fireworks tonight and was wondering if any of you professionals here could tell me which lens would be better to shoot with to get the better shots. I will be approximately 1/2 mile away. The set up is on top of a huge mountain, we will be down in the valley in the city. Also; I do not have a tripod and will be doing hand held shooting. I have done some searching and have found that a ISO of 100 with be the best. And a setting of f/11 would be good as well. Does anyone agree with this and let me know what a good shutter speed would be. Thanks in advance for the help.

Scott

You can't really say that ISO 100 and f/11 would be best. Every shot will be different and require different settings to get proper exposure and pleasing depth of field.

Unless you plan on setting the camera to auto mode and making it essentially a point and shoot then you really need to learn how to choose the correct aperture, ISO and shutter speed for your shots otherwise you will always be disappointed with the results.

A great place to start (along with coming here) is a book called understanding exposure available at amazon as well as other retailers.

I don't think it's right to just give you a bunch of arbitrary settings to plug into your camera because without being there when you press the shutter, there's no way of knowing if they are right.

If you want to take the learn by trial and error method rather than reading then a good place to start would be setting the dial on top of your camera to 'P' which is essentially an automatic mode but it will also show you what aperture and shutter speed the camera thinks is right then you can take note of what it uses for a certain shot in certain lighting conditions then try the same yourself but maybe reducing the shutter speed by 1 stop so you can close down the aperture and get more depth of field etc.

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