Beginners guide–New years firework photography.

I have been writing about the basics of the analogue photography. About film, aperture and shutter speed. If you know how those 3 things work, and know how to use them on your analogue camera, you’re ready to learn some more things that make photography fun. Since new year is coming up I thought it would be fun to work on some firework picture skills. If you haven’t read the basics and you want to know more, here are the basics:

Part one.

Part two.

Part three.

If you’re not in the mood to read all those post, I suggest to only read part three. Its about shutter speed. Which is important in this post. If you don’t know how it works, you wont understand what I ‘m telling you guys in this post.

 

New year is coming up and you’ve probably bought some firework to celebrate it. Ever tried to take a picture of the firework with your little pocketsize digital camera? There is a big chance you never get the whole explosion of colors and lights on your picture. Why? Its because your camera probably doesn’t has shutter speed options. It takes one or two seconds for the firework to fully explode in the air. Your digital camera probably takes such a small shutter speed it doesn’t get the full beautiful firework picture you want. So take out your dusty old vintage camera and a tripod. Put roll of 100 or 200 ISO film in your camera and go outside to take some pretty awesome firework action pictures!

 

So how does it work:

 

Take your camera outside. Put it on your tripod and make sure it cant move when you want to tae a picture. Look through your lens and wait the first few times to check if the firework is completely in your viewfinder. If your composition is good, check your settings. Put the focus on infinity.  The setting looks like a little 8, put sideways.

Then check your shutter speed. It has to be on the B setting, which means that the shutter speed will be as long as you push your shutter button.

 

Now you’re ready. Wait for the firework to come in your viewfinder. The second you see it popping in sight, press the shutter button. Keep pushing it until you got the full explosion on there.

 

Now you have captured the firework from the beginning till the end and you will have a beautiful picture!

Have fun shooting your new year firework, and have a very happy new year of course!

Good luck shooting beautiful pictures!