How to photograph fireworks

This guide is brought to you by Dan Mold – a Cambridgeshire-based, prize-winning photographer and author with over 13 years of photojournalism experience. Dan is also a former Adobe-certified Photoshop guru, so you know his tips are worth trusting when it comes to getting the most out of your images.

A brilliant fireworks display can be totally magical to witness, and it gives many of us a reason to reach for our cameras to try and preserve the moment. But how can you create pictures that feel as impressive as the real thing? While cameras on smartphones are getting better every year, fireworks are still one area where a dedicated mirrorless or DSLR camera will produce the best results. Here are my top tips for capturing beautiful images of fireworks.

Extend the exposure time

When the light levels drop in the evenings, your exposure time needs to be extended to let in more light so you can capture a well-exposed image. You also need to extend it to give yourself enough time to catch the burst of light as the fireworks explode in the air.

Open your camera’s Manual or Shutter Priority mode and set the shutter speed to around half a second – this will give you a better chance of capturing the bright colourful fireworks as they go off.

Use a tripod

A long shutter speed will give you more time to capture the fireworks in the sky, but it will also mean the movement of your hands will be transferred to the image, appearing as camera-shake.

The solution is to set up your camera on a tripod to stabilise it and lock off the composition. This will take your hands out of the equation for sharper shots – just be sure to frame up on where the fireworks will be appearing. Try shooting with a wide-angle lens to include some of the surrounding scenery for context. Consider including people in the crowd and their reactions, too.

Switch off image stabilisation

When shooting on a tripod, it’s best to disengage any image stabilisation (IS), whether that’s optical stabilisation in the lens, or in-body image stabilisation (IBIS). These systems are great for correcting movement when hand-holding your camera, but when your camera is on a tripod, IS systems can attempt to correct for movement that isn’t there, which introduces blur.

So it’s best to switch it off when you’re shooting on a tripod. You’ll also want to enable your camera’s two-second self-timer mode so that your finger pressing the shutter button doesn’t knock the camera as you start the exposure.

Starting settings

I prefer to shoot in Manual mode (M on the mode dial) when photographing fireworks because the camera’s metering system can easily be thrown off by the bright burst of light when the fireworks explode. As they’re also very bright, I usually set the ISO to its base value – normally ISO100 on most cameras – and this puts the digital camera sensor at its lowest level of sensitivity.

When shooting on a tripod, I also extend the shutter speed, usually to around half a second, which gives enough time to catch the trailing sparks and colourful explosions when timed right. 

Set the aperture to f/11 to start with and after a few initial exposures check the images on the rear camera LCD screen – if they’re too bright, set the aperture to a higher value like f/16; and if too dark, open the aperture to a value such as f/8 and have another go until the exposure looks spot-on.

Find a vantage point

It’s best to get set up ahead of time so that you’re not rushing around when the display has started. Get in touch with the event organisers to find out where the fireworks will be launched from and then assess where might be a good spot for you. 

In the past, I’ve shot fireworks from high up in church towers for expansive views across the city, as well as at lakes that produced incredible reflections. Some of these vantage points are popular and often become quite busy and crowded, particularly in big cities, so you may need to set up your camera and tripod ahead of time to claim the best spot.

How to focus in the dark

You’ll want to make sure you’re set up and focused before the fireworks display starts – trying to focus on rapidly moving fireworks before they quickly go off is likely to lead to poor results. I find it best to shoot a little wider to include some foreground elements for context. If possible focus on the landscape – perhaps there’s some lights you can use to focus on in dimly lit environments. 

Catherine wheels are normally used as a warm-up act before the fireworks so this should give you a constant bright light source to focus on before the fireworks start. If your camera’s autofocus system can’t lock on, go into Manual Focus and try manually instead.

Experiment with the card method

When shooting a fireworks display, you can try and use the card method. This is where you set the shutter speed to be quite long, say 30 seconds, to give yourself enough time to capture several fireworks going off in one single exposure. However, you don’t want to record the whole scene for this length of time otherwise details will become blurry and overexposed.

Instead, gently hold a piece of black card in front of the lens and begin the exposure. Then, when a firework goes off, quickly remove the card to expose the sensor to the firework and replace the card in front of the lens when it has exploded. Repeat this each time a firework goes off and you’ll end up with a well-exposed photo with many sharp fireworks.

Blend your best firework photos together

If you want more control over fireworks in your composition it can be a better idea to shoot them individually and merge the best ones in editing software such as Photoshop.

To do it, open two firework shots in Photoshop and hit Ctrl/Cmd+A to select one of them, Ctrl/Cmd+C to copy it and Ctrl/Cmd+W to close it down. Then, in your other firework picture, hit Ctrl+V to paste it in. Now head over to the layers panel (Window>Layers) and change the blending mode from Normal to Lighten or Screen to see the two images merged together. You can repeat this step with however many fireworks you want to add to your scene.