Basic Tips and Techniques in Photographing Fireworks

Shooting fireworks is fun and easy

After posting some fireworks photos in this blog and in http://wazupphilippines.blogspot.com/, a lot of people were asking me tips on shooting fireworks.  They got inspired by the photos and want to go to the 3rd Philippine International Pyromusical Competition and photograph the fireworks display as well.  Due to popular demand, here are the tips and techniques I use when shooting fireworks. This is the basic technique to capture photos of fireworks using the light trail long exposure method:

Equipment:

• Camera with Manual Aperture and Shutter Speed Settings including Bulb Mode
• A fixed wide angle lens (~ 24mm full frame 17mm cropped sensors) or zoom with similar wide angle focal length.  Kit lens set to the widest focal length are ideal.  This is applicable if you are near/mid distance to the venue. If you are very far, you might require a longer focal length
• Tripod:  A must to get sharper and better fireworks photos.  Can be optional but beyond the scope of this post
• Remote release cable or device (optional but without it, timing can be more difficult)

Location and Setup

• Arrive earlier at the venue so you can survey and get a good spot
• Some prefer fireworks only shoots against the sky and background. For beginners, I advise these to gain experience in shooting fireworks before including foreground elements like people, buildings, and landmarks which makes it more complicated.
• Check direction and velocity of wind.  If wind is going towards the camera, smoke will build up and show in your photos. Shoot more earlier in the sequence on non-windy days.  The smoke accumulates and the later fireworks will be less contrasty.
• In some events, they usually do test firing of the fireworks.  This can be used to compose your framing and test your exposure.
• Remember/approximate the edges of your framing so that you have an idea what will be include or not in your framing. These is useful if you are turning off your LCD preview. Alternative is have your preview on and look at it occasionally for verification or adjustment.

Camera Setup and Settings:

• Mount your camera to a tripod.  Watch your horizons to make sure that its not tilted. Adjust tripod legs and head accordingly.
• Connect a shutter release cable so that you can release the shutter without moving the camera.  If you don't have a shutter release cable, you can use the 2-second self-timer.  However, this will make timing your shots more difficult. Make sure that your camera is off before connecting or disconnecting any attachments.
• Set your camera to Manual (M) mode
• Use the lowest ISO possible, usually ISO 100, to get the least noise and get cleaner, higher contrast shots.
• Set focus to manual.  Autofocus might not work as fast and you will miss a lot of shots.  Focus on the distance where the fireworks will be fired.  If you can locate the launching pad, focus there or anywhere in the similar distance.  This most of the time is far and focus to almost the lens infinity settings. Also remember that if you zoom/change your focal length, please re-adjust your focus.
• Adjust to White Balance to Daylight or Tungsten.  Tungsten will give the true color but some people prefer daylight for the warmer colors. I usually shoot RAW so I can choose later which WB matches selected photos, in addition to insurance to exposure issues.
• Set the shutter speed to Bulb (B) settings.  Bulb mode allows you to control the how much time the shutter will be open to expose the picture instead of using a fixed shutter speed
• Set aperture initially to f/11.  Fireworks are usually bright and can be photographed with smaller apertures. The aperture should be adjusted in relation to the brightness of the fireworks.  Open-up (bigger aperture hole, lower number) to f/8 or more if your initial shots does not look well exposed.  On the reverse, stop-down (smaller aperture, higher number) to f/16 if your shots look over-exposed.
• Adjust camera framing portrait or landscape. I usually use landscape for wider shoots and crop them latter to get portrait shots or take only a few portrait shots. Make sure you leave some space for bigger shells and wider multiple shells explosion.  Since your camera is mounted on a tripod, it's not advisable to be switching to portrait/landscape mode because it takes time to switch and lose some of the fireworks. 

Actual Shooting

Press the remote release button to start exposing and hold it pressed.  As long as you don't release the button, the shutter is open to capture the fireworks. Release the button to finish exposure.


Press the button when the firework is launch or about to explode and hold the button pressed until firework shell finished exploding.  This usually last a few seconds.  Your timing of pressing the button will results in these two variations:

1. Late timed shots without launch light trail (tree trunk like trail)

2. Early timed shots to include launch to create light trail of launch (tree trunk like trail)

Please note that some of the fireworks actually do not create a light trail when launch but only when they explode.  So timing variations to create launch trail does not apply to these type, however, timing is still important to press just before or on the explosion to create a better explosion light trail (flower light trail)

The number of layers/overlays of fireworks depends on two factors:

• the rate of firing (how often the fireworks are launched)
• your exposure time (how long before you released the button after pressing it)

During the slow rate of fire, make your exposure short 1-3 seconds for simple layered shot.

Simple layered shots: 3 secs at f/8 ISO 100

Alternatively, expose longer, 4-10 seconds for multi-layer (3 or more fireworks sequence)

Exposed longer at 9 sec @ f/11 ISO 100 to create more layers and variety of fireworks

Just be careful not to expose to long especially if there are repeating shots in the same area or a sequence of fireworks in the base like fountains.  This will lead to overexposure.

Prolonged exposure and/or repeated fireworks at same area leads to overexposure

Near the finale or in some peaks of the performance (and sometimes in the Intro!), the rate of firing will increase so you will get more layers of fireworks even you expose shortly.  This was in the finale so even in 2 seconds of exposure, the photo had more layers.

Finales/Peaks: More layers even at 2 seconds at f/13 ISO 100

Track results every few batches to make sure there are no issues in focus and exposure.

Remember if you zoom in or out, check your focus again.

Adjust aperture accordingly to adjust to intensity of fireworks.  There are weaker fireworks at slow parts and very bright explosive ones during the finale.

Since you are shooting with a digital camera, take a lot of photos since it's no cost anyway.  Try different varieties: simple layer, multi-layered, wide shots, zoomed shots, etc...

Enjoy shooting your fireworks display!
 

How to Get Sharp Pictures When Photographing People Walking

In photography genres like Street Photography, we include people walking in our photo compositions.  In some cases, you as a photographer would like to freeze the movement to get a sharper image of the people walking.

Adjusting the shutter speed accordingly is the key to a frozen action leading to a sharper (not blurred) people in the photo. Although we would like to use the fastest shutter speed available to freeze the motion, it's always not possible to due low-lighting situations.  Selecting the minimum shutter speed fast enough to freeze the motion and but slow enough to get the exposure right.

In the example black & white photo below, people are walking into and away from the direction of the camera.  This requires at least 1/125" shutter speed or faster depends on the speed of the person to freeze the motion.

f /4.0, 1/125", ISO 80

In the next colored photo below, the person is walking sideways in the frame from right to left.  In this case, it would require at least 1/250" shutter speed.

f/4.0, 1/250", ISO 800

To freeze the action, subjects moving side to side across the frame will require faster shutter speeds compared to subjects moving towards or away from the camera like in the previous photo.

To illustrate the effect of selecting shutter speed slower than suggested, the photo below shows a blurry ( lack of sharpness) person due to motion blur caused by the wrong shutter speed choice of 1/50".

f/2.8, 1/50", ISO 400

In summary, freezing action requires faster shutter speeds depending on the speed of the subjects. Since this post is about freezing the action of people walking, it is suggested to use at least:
- 1/125" if the people are moving towards or away from the camera
- 1/250" if the people are moving sidewards (left to right or vice-versa)

These settings are based on average walking speed, not brisk walking, jogging or running.
Of course it's a given that when you adjust your shutter speed, you have to adjust your aperture or ISO to achieve the right exposure.  You can use shutter priority mode (Tv or S), set your shutter speed accordingly and the camera will adjust the aperture or the ISO (if set to auto ISO).

We will tackle faster moving subject and blurring motion in future post.

Low Light Photography with the Feast of Black Nazarene

January 9, 2012 was the Feast of the Black Nazarene. It's a big religious celebration for Roman Catholics here in the Philippines.  Millions of barefoot devotees risked their life and limb just to wipe the wooden Black Nazarene statue with their white towels, touch it, or pull the rope attached to the Andas ("Carriage). It's a photo opportunity not to be missed!

Together with my photography friends from Grupo Potograpika, we positioned ourselves at around 1:30 pm on the top of the Feati University overlooking the McArthur bridge where the procession will passed by.  I was a good high vantage point.  However, there were so many issues with the carriage that by the time it arrived on the bridge, it was already almost 8:30 pm.  Most of us decided to abandon the rooftop position after sunset to go to the fenced area on the ground floor to get better lighting on the devotees compared to the lighting we will get as show in the last photo "View from the Roof".  I really regretted not bringing my 580EXII flash.

Finally, the carriage approached the bridge and the excitement begun. The moment we are waiting for, the fruits of our 7 hours wait, our opportunity to take photos of the action.

The challenge now is the low lighting. Only sources of light are the street lamps.  I switched to ISO 800 & 1600.  The Canon 40D is rated around ISO 800 for it's low light efficiency. Even with my Sigma 18-50 f/2.8, I needed more ISO so I switch to ISO 1600 bearing in mind I will just do noise reduction using Nik Define via Lightroom during post processing.

The Rope and The Andas "Carriage"  ( f/3.2, 1/50", ISO 1600, Manual Mode)

The first photo above was taken at 1/50" to freeze the action. You might think 1/50" is too slow but with a slow moving subject (carriage) coupled with a wider angle (zoomed at 33mm), it did the job at ISO 1600.  ISO 3200 is not an option due to extreme noise for the Canon 40D.

The Towel Wave (f/2.8, 1/6"at ISO 800, Av Mode)

It's exciting to see and hear the roar and celebration of the crowd when doing the Towel Wage when the carriage moves forward after getting stuck coupled with the music of the brass band playing the theme.  For this Towel Wave photo above, I shot in AV mode selecting the fastest aperture I have f/2.8 and switched back to ISO 800 so I can get a slow enough shutter speed to blur the towel and the banner movement.  Why not stick with ISO 1600 and just adjust aperture or shutter speed?  Main reason is I get less noise with ISO 800.  If would like to use ISO 400 but the shutter speed will be to low and will blur most of the photo.  Second, since I was shooting wide at 33mm at far from the subject, even at f/2 .8 renders enough depth of field (area of focus) required.  Third, I have the right shutter speed balance to show blur on the hands, towel, banner waving juxtaposed against the standing crowds.

Candlelight (f/3.2, 1/30", ISO 1600, Manual Mode)

For the photo "Candlelight", I used spot metering and metered on the bright side of the scene.  This is a good technique for dramatic low lighting because the rest of the scene the light will fall off.


If you want to see some of the other photos take during the event, please follow this link:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2994914560387.2154379.1487896541&type=3

View from the Roof (f/2.8, 1/30, ISO 1600, Manual Mode)

Juxtaposition and Background Fixing in Street Photography

Free Hug

Crossed Paths

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Juxtaposition as the act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side.  In photography, its positioning of objects one upon the other, or side by side to create meaning within the viewer's mind.

Went to SM Mall North Edsa, in the The Block area, and saw these two displays that caught my attention.  Using a technique called "Background Fixing", I setup my Canon G12 camera's exposure, positioned it on in front of my body (hip shooting) and clicked when a person/subject comes into the frame to be juxtaposed with the displays.  It was just a matter of waiting for the decisive moment to click.  Viewing the frame with the G12's articulated screen really helps the framing, at least approximately.  Both photos were cropped later.  The photo "Crossed Paths" was originally in landscape format because of the hip shooting style but later cropped to portrait to remove the extra details and make it stronger.

A Simple Setup for Food or Product Shoot
Using Available Light

Exif: f/11 at 1/8 sec, ISO 100

I decided to pick this ripping Sugar Apple from the tree at home before the birds or the bats eat it.  I have to wait for 2 days before it gets ripe for eating.  For the meantime, I decided to photograph it to illustrate a simple low cost setup for food or product photography as my first entry to this blog!

The light source was the diffused light during a cloudy day shining through the garage as seen in the photo below. This type of available light is a great source of soft directional lighting that brings out texture of the subject with soft shadows which is ideal for most food or product photography scenarios.

The camera was placed so that the subject is lit from the left side.  Side lighting creates shadows that makes the subject look more 3 dimensional compared to front lighting that make it flat.

Soft directional lighting coming from outside the garage

For the "studio" setup, I used the following:

• 30"x20" illustration board as a seamless base & background
• 2 pcs 14"x10" illustration board as fill-in card
• Plastic folder case as holder/stand for the fill-in cards
• Bulldog clips to hold the boards
• Washing machine as table top (This will remind me later that I have to do the laundry after the shoot)

I mounted the camera on the tripod and shot tethered using Adobe Lightroom.

The "Studio" Setup

I shot another photo without using the fill-in card.  The photo below is the one without fill and the one after it is the one with fill (same as 1st photo above) for easy comparison.

Without Fill (Above)
With fill (Below)

The effects of the fill light bounced by the white fill-in card as follows:

• Without fill, the shadow of the fruit is darker
• With fill, the right side of the fruit is more even to the left side

I like both of the photos, with or without fill. It's just a matter of preference. Which do you prefer?

To adjust the amount of fill light, you can move the fill-in card farther or closer to reduce or increase the fill according to your preference. The farther the fill-in card, the less light will bounce and therefore darkening the side being filled-in.

I used the photo with the fill-in and added some text in Photoshop to make this "Fruit Card".  The 2 photos of the fruit above were not post-process much aside from the setting of the white balance, added +.5 stop exposure to lighten the background, and converted to jpg using Adobe Lightroom.

"Fruit Card"

 Most food photographers prefers available lighting coming from windows or doors if available.  It's simple to setup, low-cost and effective!