Looking for Tips on photgraphing fireworks

phog

The National Lottery's Skyfest is coming from Limerick this Saturday evening and with your help I hope to capture a few decent photos.

I have the camera and tripod, I have a choice of three lenses - an 18-70, a 55-200 and a 70-300. I dont have a remote release and using the timer mightn't be an option.

- Should I go for the zoom and hope to capture the fireworks or use the 18-70 and have a better chance of getting something then cropping later?
- What settings should I use?
- Should I try for captureing a background or just the sky
- How do you focus on fireworks, what is my best bet?
- Should I shoot in continuous mode?

Any other tips, I'm a real newbie to this.


From what I understand the fireworks will be set off from the green area to the right of the castle in the picture below and I'll be standing (if I can) further down river from where I took this photo.

Thanks in advance.

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pixbyjohn

Hope this helps
http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-photograph-fireworks

phog

Thanks for the link, some good reading there. I like one of the additional tips "stand up wind to avoid the smoke" hope I remember this on Saturday.

Jackobyte

phog wrote: »

Thanks for the link, some good reading there. I like one of the additional tips "stand up wind to avoid the smoke" hope I remember this on Saturday.

I hope to try photograph some of the skyfest as well. Might see you there!:D

maddogcollins

pixbyjohn wrote: »

Hope this helps
http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-photograph-fireworks

Perfect timing with the link. I ordered a D5000 and should be in receipt of it by friday. Will then be going to skyfest in Limerick on Saturday to test it out.

Just wish I had a few more days to get used to it prior to it. Wont be expecting the best results.

streetshooter

I'm planning to try for some good shots also - any recommendations on the best place to stand?

maddogcollins

I assume any of the three bridges will give a good vantage spot.

Nowhere with a bit of height around there to get a better advantage so hope for front row seats

duffarama

I don't know if you have scene modes on your camera, but there may be a fireowrks option there too, be worth a try if you're having no joy.

phog

streetshooter wrote: »

I'm planning to try for some good shots also - any recommendations on the best place to stand?

I'm hoping to get a spot on Clancy Strand, one of the new mini parks in my 1st choice, I think Thomond Bridge might be too close to the action and the parapets Sarsfield bridge might be too high, it would be great to the to the back of Shannon rowing club.

CCSL

I went along there today to scope things out and got a few shots of the riggers at work setting up.

I had a chat with the guys and there is going to be some show!!!

They will also be launching from the top of the castle.

I got nice shots at last years Riverfest from the same spot using an 18-55 zoom and varying the exposure from 15-30 sec on ISO 200





So the same spot should work just get there early and bring spare batteries and a heavy stable tripod as the long exposure time tends to eat them up!!
And don't forget a warm hat and Gloves!!:D

More pics over on Munster Images section of my website

Jackobyte

CCSL wrote: »

I went along there today to scope things out and got a few shots of the riggers at work setting up.

I had a chat with the guys and there is going to be some show!!!

They will also be launching from the top of the castle.

I got nice shots at last years Riverfest from the same spot using an 18-55 zoom and varying the exposure from 15-30 sec on ISO 200

<photo snip x2>

So the same spot should work just get there early and bring spare batteries and a heavy stable tripod as the long exposure time tends to eat them up!!
And don't forget a warm hat and Gloves!!:D

More pics over on Munster Images section of my website

I don't have spare batteries!

phog

Looking for some more advice, I walked along Clancy Strand this eveing and noticed that there are street lights along the stand and in both mini parks, will this have an effect on my photos? How best to neutralise the lights?

stick-dan

Just enjoy it,, defo leave the 70-300 at home if your main priority is the fireworks... I shot skyfest last year in waterford and personally took wide angle low below the fireworks hunched down looking up, didnt have the privilege of a tripod at the time. The lads on pix that shot it too last year tended to go wide angle then sometimes cropped further. Perhaps head over to pix.ie and search for the tag skyfest. It'd give you ideas

Jackobyte

Anyone know any good Custom White Balances or Picture Styles for photographing fireworks on a Canon.

phog

Well here's a few of mine and I'm happy enough for my first time trying fireworks - lots and lots of camers there so there should be a decent amount of photos appearing over the next few days. I met a group from Carlow who travelled up for the show.

Jackobyte

You got a very nice spot phog. I left for town at 6.30, on what should have been a 5 minute drive in. The city was already gridlocked at this stage and half the streets were closed meaning we couldn't get to where we intended to park. Ended up parking on Cecil Street and walking to O' Callaghan Strand. THe only place where it was suitable to set up a tripod when I got there was by The Strand Barracks so you can hardly see the castle in mine. The fireworks look great in mine though and I had a HD video function in my 500D so I even captured some videos. They look fantastic as well. I'll try upload later.


EDIT: BTW, battery was not a problem at all. I shot long exposures and videos constantly for the full display and still left with 3 bars.

Jackobyte

I don't know if anyone else was there and saw it on the television (sky +) but the coverage of it did not do it justice at all. It didn't look half as magical as it was.

Jackobyte

More here

phog

Jackobyte wrote: »

You got a very nice spot phog. I left for town at 6.30, on what should have been a 5 minute drive in. The city was already gridlocked at this stage and half the streets were closed meaning we couldn't get to where we intended to park. Ended up parking on Cecil Street and walking to O' Callaghan Strand. THe only place where it was suitable to set up a tripod when I got there was by The Strand Barracks so you can hardly see the castle in mine. The fireworks look great in mine though and I had a HD video function in my 500D so I even captured some videos. They look fantastic as well. I'll try upload later.


EDIT: BTW, battery was not a problem at all. I shot long exposures and videos constantly for the full display and still left with 3 bars.

I left home around 5.15 and was in O'Callaghan Strand for around 5.30, a good fewa round, I set up on the little park in front of Strand Barracks as there was no street lights and I could see the castle but was still back far enough to get the sky as well, there was a guy set up there at that stage. I was only there a few mins when a group from Carlow arrived and then it looked like the whole front row was full of camers.

It's great to see all the various shots of the same fireworks, I love them all

Jackobyte

phog wrote: »

I left home around 5.15 and was in O'Callaghan Strand for around 5.30, a good fewa round, I set up on the little park in front of Strand Barracks as there was no street lights and I could see the castle but was still back far enough to get the sky as well, there was a guy set up there at that stage. I was only there a few mins when a group from Carlow arrived and then it looked like the whole front row was full of camers.

It's great to see all the various shots of the same fireworks, I love them all

I was on the road a hundred metres back from that park. Another photographer was set up beside me as well and she looked like she knew what she was doing and had obviously photographed fireworks before. I'd have loved to see her pictures. She had been blocking the lens with a book between fireworks. After the display I asked her what effect that had had and she said it removed most of the smoke from her pictures.

phog

Jackobyte wrote: »

I was on the road a hundred metres back from that park. Another photographer was set up beside me as well and she looked like she knew what she was doing and had obviously photographed fireworks before. I'd have loved to see her pictures. She had been blocking the lens with a book between fireworks. After the display I asked her what effect that had had and she said it removed most of the smoke from her pictures.

I think that was becasue she was using "bulb", scroll back through this thread as I think someone mentioned holding a black card in front of the lens.

Jackobyte

phog wrote: »

I think that was becasue she was using "bulb", scroll back through this thread as I think someone mentioned holding a black card in front of the lens.

Ya, she was using bulb. She said it prevents the camera from capturing the empty smokefilled sky between fireworks.

CCSL

Nice Shots Phog.
I was down next to the Customs House. The main problem there was keeping people from jostling the tripod! Luckly im not exactly a " Small " Guy...:rolleyes: Also I allways try and set up next to a light pole or some other immovable object to reduce any crowd push. Closeups were shot with a 50-300 Sigma Zoom Lens and the long shots with a Pentax 18-50 Zoom. Exposures from 3-15 Sec.







More over on my Picasa page...

homerun_homer

Jackobyte wrote: »

I don't know if anyone else was there and saw it on the television (sky +) but the coverage of it did not do it justice at all. It didn't look half as magical as it was.

The TV footage was shocking, I was cringing the whole time. You could tell they were trying to be cheap and make a crappy tourism video while they were at it.
The way they spliced the footage of green fields, old ruins, cliffs etc over the badly framed fireworks live feed was frustrating. For a display this hyped up they made a balls of showing it well on TV.