How to Photograph Fireworks Video Lecture | Capture like a Pro: Digital Photography Tutorial - Professional Skills

Hi, I'm Tony Northrup and for chapter 10
in my book Stunning Digital Photography
I'm going to show you two different ways
to take pictures of fireworks in honor of
fourth of July.
I'm also going to let you get chapter 10
for free
just wait until the end of the video and
I'll give you a link that you can
download it.
The first technique I call the hat
technique. So what we're going to do is put
our camera on a tripod, set it to manual
mode, and then put it at 30 seconds, f/8 and
ISO 400.
Now before we take a picture I'm going to focus on the first firework that goes. So i'm just goin to use
the auto focus system and as soon as it
goes up I'm gonna try to focus on it and then
once i'm focused I'm not gonna take a
picture I'm gonna switch the lens over to
manual focus. Now the lens is focused
where the fireworks are and it's not going
to change.
Now I'll take my hat off and put my hat over
the lens. This is stopping any light from
coming in and ruining my pictures.
So now i can just open the shutter. And
it's gonna stay opened for 30 seconds.
whenever there's a cool explosion I'll
take the hat off the lens and it will get
exposed and then as soon as the
explosion fades I'll cover back up.
Another cool explosion,
I'll take it back off and then as it
starts to fade, I'll cover it back up. What
you'll end up with is one long exposure
that consists of multiple different
fireworks. This works with just about any
camera, film cameras, anything. No
post-processing needed. But you have to
stand there and manage the camera, right?
Every 30 seconds you have to restart the
shutter, you have to be watching the
fireworks and working your hat and all
that. And maybe you want to sit back
and enjoy the show.
That's why you might want to use my
second method, which I call be hands-free
method. To use this method you need a
camera with time lapse built in. Rr you
need a remote shutter release and this
is my favorite way to do it.
So I'll just plug this into my camera,
these will cost you no more than 20 bucks.
Don't buy one of the expensive ones, just
get one of the cheap off brand ones. I'll
plug it into my camera and now whenever I
push this the shutter will start.
So first i'm going to put it in manual mode
and then i'm going to go all the way
down to one third of a second. I'll switch it
down to f/4 and ISO 400. Use the same
technique for auto focusing and switch
the drive
on the camera to continuous shutter, so
that it will take pictures over and over
and over again, as long as you hold the
shutter down. You could just hold your
finger here but this is where the remote
shutter release comes in handy.
I'm just going to lock it on. Hear that?
the camera's taking a picture every one
third of a second, three pictures a
second throughout the whole firework
show. Later, after i get back, i can go
through and just pick the favorite
pictures out of there.
I could even blend them together in
Photoshop. But if you want more
information about that,
just go into chapter 10 of Stunning
digital photography and go to sdp.io/july4
and just get the chapter
for free for today. Thanks so much.