My Funny Picture

How can I take better pictures of fireworks?

There is a Canada Day fireworks display later tonight, and I would like to take some photographs of it. I have a Kodak EasyShare cx730 digital camera with a night-photo mode. How can I maximize the quality of my fireworks pictures?

Public Comments

1. Use a tripod because when your taking night shots the shutter speed is slower due to not using the flash so you can capture the natural lighting. If you use the flash you won't get the fireworks. The tripod will stabalize the camera and keep the pics in focus. Happy Canada Day from a fellow Canadian!
2. You need to use manual exposure, because the black sky will fool the autoexposure system into over exposing the shot, giving you a gray sky and over exposed, washed out fireworks. Fireworks are bright, and fool even your eyes. With ISO 100, you need to use f/8 or f/11 and an exposure time long enough to include two or three bursts in the photo. I'll be teaching a fireworks photography workshop this Wednesday evening for the USA's July 4th celebration. Here is an example of how a fireworks photo should look, taken from a previous workshop: http://tinyurl.com/2ofplj