Talk about bad timing, I am about to write how to spice up your fireworks photography and it is about two weeks after the Fourth of July. Oh well, I am not in the practice of photographing fireworks so I didn’t have the photos to complement this article. This 4th of July a did a little photography during the fireworks show at Timnath, Colorado.  Now I have photos to share. So lets see if I can give you some ideas for next years fireworks photos.

If you have been serious about photography for more than a month most likely you know the tried and true method to get pics like this one:

It is a pretty and standard fireworks photo. Here are the specs: ISO 100, F-Stop 9.0, Exposure 6.2 seconds, lens a 16 to 80mm at 22mm. Camera on a sturdy tripod with a cable release. Of course all these setting were set in manual mode and the focus was also set manually to infinity.

Nice pretty picture. Throw a bunch of them in Photoshop and you end up with a fantastic photo that you can make a poster of a fun remembrance. Like this:

That is all find and dandy. In fact such fireworks photos make fantastic images and prints. Still at the time of the shooting there is more that you can do that can create some visually stunning and different images; Like this one:

Or this one:

To get these effects I zoom the lens in on the first one and out on the second one. Also on the second one I continued the exposure after the zoom.

You can also wiggle the lens for an interesting effect or wiggle and zoom. Here are a few more examples of the zoom effect:

I think now you get the idea just how easy it is to be creative with your camera when photographing fireworks. Back in the day of film we would do this sort of things and then have to wait a few days for the film to be processed to see if we were successful. Sometimes we were really disappointed. With digital cameras you have instant review so you know right away if what you are doing is successful or not. So next time when at a fireworks show be creative with a couple of shutter releases. It could be very rewarding.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. Photographer: C. L. Getchius For more info on camera setting click here.