Fire & fireworks tips?

[zedbra]

I'm off to the usual local bonfire/fireworks display soon, and I'm wondering if anyone has some tips for taking good photos? I'll put 3 of my efforts below from the past 2 years, but they don't look anything particularly professional. All I can think of to do is set the ISO higher than usual but not so it's noisy - Maybe ISO400 or so. Then I guess just stick with my f1.8 nifty 50 so I can open the aperture up a lot (the most I can do with my other lenses is f3.5). I'll have no zoom then but that's better than blurred shots. Any other tips please for how I could get something really good from the evening? Maybe some effects shots? Mainly for the fire, as I'm not too fussed about fireworks and the fire they always have is very large.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Forbiddenbiker]

They look okay to me, fires nicely exposed ... what are you after? large star bursts that kind of thing?

There's a few different ways of capturing these scenes, .... for a frame full of star bursts I like to fire the shutter just after the flash or flashes, they are often in threes of fours etc. ...that way you don't get the blown out flash centers, but you do gather the streams of light as they fly outwards with the longer exposure. 1-2 seconds ish on a tripod.

Every night and display if different, but I try not to have the lens wide open, focus near infinity, use shutter priority leaving the auto aperture to correct for the variances in left over light, rear cloud lightness changes, etc. etc. ... I see the contradiction but you get my point hopefully.

If you search for this subject using the search facility you should find many other threads ... we've had a few recently..

 

[Matt989]

Ill be out taking some shots like these too...its my first year with a DSLR but Ill probably keep ISO at 100 and using manual mode!

If there is a fire at the event your going to why not get down low, keep the shutter speed high and get some silhouettes against the firey background?

 

[zedbra]

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll re-read this thread in 2 weeks time before going to the event.

Forbiddenbiker - I'm not sure what I'm after really, but mainly bonfire stuff than fireworks.

Matt -I found on my previous year's shots (as you can see in my first shot above) that the silhouettes of people's heads looked good, so I think this year I'll make more of a thing of that and do as you suggest.