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| Fireworks Photography |
With the Chinese New Year just around the corner, I am posting this article to fire up your festival celebration mood. Wishing everyone Gong Xi Fa Cai and a very prosperous Rabbit Lunar New Year!!
Although it is not very common to see fireworks display during the Chinese New Year, at least not in Malaysia where most of the people leave the big cities and celebrate the festival in their hometown, there will still be opportunity to photograph fireworks display. In this article, I would like to share with you a few tips of Fireworks Photography.
Everybody loves fireworks. It is so beautiful and spectacular that it often evokes emotions in people and is best to fire up a festive atmosphere. Many assumed photographing fireworks to be tough. Well, I would say give it a try and you will find that it is not as tough as you thought. But of course, you will need some preparation if you want to photograph a fireworks display successfully. Although a DSLR camera provides more options and controls when photographing fireworks, a compact camera can do a decent job too. The two pictures below were captured with my Canon IXUS860IS compact camera back in year 2009, which was also my first attempt in Fireworks Photography.
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| Fireworks captured with my Canon IXUS860IS Compact Camera |
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| Fireworks Captured with my Canon IXUS860IS Compact Camera |
Tip #1: Use a Tripod
As you can see from the above pictures captured with my compact camera, all you need is a tripod to hold your camera firm when photographing fireworks because you would like to have a slower shutter speed to allow the movement of the lights from the fireworks to paint onto your picture, forming beautiful patterns as a result of the fireworks explosion. Estimate which part of the sky will the fireworks be, focus your camera towards that section and lock it with your tripod. Set your camera to slow shutter speed settings and get ready to push the shutter button when the fireworks display starts.
