Until last evening, I hadn’t had an opportunity to photograph a fireworks display. The Auburn Fourth of July Celebration featured a fireworks display and since I was there joining my friends, Foxtrot Mary, the featured entertainment for the celebration, I tried my hand at it. I read up on how to do it so I wouldn’t waste too much time figuring it out for myself. I set the ISO to 100, the aperture to f/11, and experimented with shutter speeds from 1/8 second to 25 seconds. I had read that I should set the camera to manual focus so it wouldn’t try to auto focus every shot but I forgot to do that and luckily, I was mostly successful at focusing the shots with auto focus. I set the camera on the tripod and I basically watched the fireworks while punching the shutter release every few seconds. What I noticed was that the fireworks all seemed to explode at the same place so my hopes of getting several cascades of fire at various places in the shot didn’t materialize. I took most of these shots (the first 7) with a 45mm focal length and a shutter speed of 6 seconds. I was experimenting with the last two shots, the first 28mm, 10 seconds, and the last at 35mm, 25 seconds. The last two include a bit more light action. I couldn’t decide which of these shots I liked best so I’m including all of them.
Good job! I went with a friend to our fireworks and they were awesome too!
Love these- it’s hard to pick a favorite. I’ll have to check back next year for your settings. Beautifully photographed.