There are ten things to remember when shooting fireworks. 1. Use a tripod; 2. Remote release; 3. Frame your shot; 4. Mind your focal length; 5. Aperture; 6. Shutter speed; 7. ISO; 8. Don’t use a Flash; 9. Shoot in Manual Mode; 10. Experiment and track results.
Let’s just say that this night, we pretty much forgot all ten rules. We forgot to bring a tripod. We don’t have a remote release cable. We had the camera on our lap pointed up hence we never framed any of the shots. We didn’t try zooming in or out, we don’t even know what focal length we shot these.
We put the camera in manual mode and said a prayer.
As for the video? We strapped our little gem of a pocket camcorder on our lawn chair armrest, pointed it to the sky and hit the record button.
Our prayer was answered and the shots turned out fine. But definitely next time, we won’t forget to bring a tripod!
