How to Photography Sparklers and Fireworks using Long Exposure

One way to enjoy Photography  sparklers and fireworks is to simply observe them as a spectator. It might also be fun to blow a few things up your self, but as a photographer one can do what photographers do best and that is to create beautiful images using time exposure.

Here 8 to Photography  Sparklers and Fireworks using Long Exposure:

1. Tripod:

Put your camera on a tripod.

2. Manual Mode:

Put your camera in manual mode and get ready to set all the variables: Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, white balance, and maybe flash.

3. Shutter:

Adjust the shutter speed to BULB mode or a slow shutter speed of your choice. You could also try using a remote or a shutter release to reduce camera shake, if you wanna go totally pro with it.

4. Aperture:

Adjust your aperture. You can experiment until you get the result you like, and then you can just leave the aperture alone if you are using the same sparklers. California candles are much brighter than sparklers though, so make sure to tighten up your aperture somewhere around f/11.

5. ISO:

I like to leave my ISO number as low as possible to eliminate noise.

6. White Balance

Use a cool white balance because sparklers are very red. Try using Tungsten or Florescent, or the lowest number in Kelvin if your camera allows it.  Mine goes down to 2500.

7. Flash

Using a flash will freeze your subject while preserving the long motion of the sparkler trails. If you do not use a flash, you will only see the sparkler trails. If you use no flash and also use a very wide aperture with a high ISO, then you will be able to see the sparkler trails AND the environment will be illuminated from the sparklers.

8. Post- Production:

You can also post processing your images to make psychedelic patterns in Photoshop.

Watch this photography tutorial video to learn how use long exposure to capture sparklers and fireworks.