need help with fireworks!

C

CJ

Member
Im shooting Wishes for the first time tomorrow night and I know there has to be some post-processing voodoo magic that a few of you use to get the amazing photos you do (like getting rid of all the smoke!!). If there are any tips or advice you can give to a first timer I would really appreciate it, whether it be post, or making sure something else is right before I go into post-processing.

Hopefully I'll walk away with a few decent shots...
 
Tripod, remote shutter release.

Low ISO; I prefer manual mode (used to be bulb): ; stop the aperture down - it's a fine line to keep the smoke from exposing too much and then losing sharpness due to diffraction, and set the shutter speed for several seconds. ; Adjust the time of your exposure based on LCD review (probably the best thing that happened to photography. ; Back in the age of print film you couldn't experiment easily because you couldn't see your results until after the film was developed....)

If your camera has mirror lockup, I'd use that.
 
I'm not that good at fireworks post processing, so I won't comment on that.

Getting rid of the smoke isn't post processing magic. ; Its weather magic. ; If the wind is blowing out of the East or West, it will clear the smoke the fastest. ; If its blowing out of the South, you will have some smoke in the picture but it will be behind the fireworks. ; If it is blowing out of the North, you're going to have some nice photos of backlit smoke because the bursts from the Fantasyland rooftops will obscure the big bursts that are shot from behind the park.

I don't know how much you know about fireworks shooting, so I'll start with the basics. ; You'll need to leave the shutter open a long time to capture fireworks correctly. ; The streaks of light you see in photographs are actually tiny balls of light traveling though the air. ; By leaving the shutter open longer, you'll capture the entire streak.

The big thing with fireworks is timing. ; You need to anticipate the bursts so that you open the shutter just before they open so that you get the whole trail. ; If you're too late, you'll only capture the end of the trail which doesn't look that good. ;

The most important thing to remember is to have fun and enjoy the show. ; Shooting fireworks takes practice and if you only get one good shot the first time out, you're doing good.
 
Roger and MIchael hit it on the head. ; If you don't have a remote release, you can use the self timer - the key is to keep from moving the camera while the shutter is open.

Check out Firework Photography 101 at wdwphotography.com. ; You can also Google "fireworks photography" for other opinions.

Good luck, and be sure to post the results!
 
Thanks everyone. I've shot night photos before so I understand the idea of long exposures, I just wasn't sure if there was any difference in shooting fireworks. I've been watching videos of wishes trying to learn when bursts go off with the music so I can anticipate when to shoot. I've read some things about the 'country shutter' but I think for my first time Im going to try and stick to fairly short shutter times (around 3 seconds.) that seems to be pretty normal from what I have seen and should be able to get at least a few bursts in each shot. Im still deciding between the Poly beach and the TTC but maybe I will scout both places out tomorrow during the day and see which I like better.

Ill definitely post some shots when Im done and hopefully I can get some constructive criticism for my next time!
 
i would suggest trying a few at longer times, ie. 3 seconds, then 4 seconds, 5 ; 8don't forget you need to factor in for the distance away from the burst you will be, the poly and ttc are farther away then you'd think, esp since the bursts are behind or outside the mk perimeter
 
I personally say that the Poly is better, but then again, I have never even thought of the TTC when considering where to go to see the fireworks.
 
"PolynesianMedic" said:
I personally say that the Poly is better, but then again, I have never even thought of the TTC when considering where to go to see the fireworks.
Click to expand...

Well, Jeff, soon you can do both and tell us which one you like the best. ; :)

I'm with Gary, try various shutter speeds. ; BUT, caution on the grand finale, you'll have to cut the shutter speed down or you'll get a blow out mess as I have found out the hard way. ; Try quickly changing from 3+ seconds to 1, 1/2 or 1/4 second. Good luck! ; You are going to learn a lot. ; If you have a small LCD flashlight, that'll come in handy to work with the camera's controls in a darkened environment.
 
Like Gary and Scott mentioned, longer exposures are better. ; I like to shoot in the 6-8 second range, but at Pixelmania this year, I'm going to shooting with a ND filter to get even longer exposures. ;

The hardest part with shooting Wishes is that you'll have the castle that you have to expose properly for the shot to look good. ; You have to be careful that when you adjust your exposure length to capture more fireworks bursts that you don't forget to adjust your aperture to maintain the proper exposure for the castle.
 
The biggest part of shooting WDW fireworks is knowing the show and knowing what shell goes off when. ; Pay attention to the music cues; You dont want your 20+ second exposure killed by some white phosphorus.

You're essentially light painting.

As for getting rid of the smoke? ; You want a low humidity day with lots of high pressure & a slight wind.
 
"fotodave" said:
As for getting rid of the smoke? ; You want a low humidity day with lots of high pressure & a slight wind.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that tip. ; I didn't know that pressure and humidity had any affect on fireworks smoke. ; I thought all you needed was a slight wind in the right direction.
 
More humidity = more water vapor in the air for the smoke to cling to.

Thats why it looks like (poopie!) in August 3 hours after a rainstorm.
 
I shoot fireworks (pyrotechnician), and also shoot fireworks (photography). Because of some of my contacts, I can sometimes get an alert about a unique fireworks shoot. Some of my stuff:

http://www.thecalderwoods.org/pyro.htm
Disney pyro is sprinkled in with my other DLR shoots:
http://www.thecalderwoods.org/disney.htm

I also started this site early last year:
http://www.pyrotography.com

The advice here on this thread is good. I also did a page many years ago to show folks how I do it:
http://www.thecalderwoods.org/tom/digital_pyro_photography.htm
(It is kind of old - needs to be updated)

For smoke, you can *try* to get rid of smoke in post, or get yourself positioned well so the wind works *for* you. Or just deal with the smoke. You can try to increase the black point in Photoshop (or Lightroom), but that usually has undesireable effects.

Personally, I try to capture the full color of the stars (the burning colored part of the fireworks) - too may times the photo is exposed so the star is a white streak with a color halo. I go more for the entire star to have color. (Harder than you think...)

I also try to catch some *very* unique shots, knowing something about the chemistry of fireworks. On the shot below, I knew I needed a dry, moonless, slightly windy night for this to work (to minimize smoke). I placed the camera so that I cold get the Mickey, the castle and the statue, and yeah, I set up on that spot around 6:30 p.m. The Mickey in the sky is done with gold glitter which is burning charcoal saturated with potassium nitrate. Charcoal burns at a fairly low temperature, and I usually expose that at f/9. At aperture, it took a 4.5 second exposure to see good colors on the castle. My wife was to my left, my son around about 15' along the plants on the right, both with flash units in hand set for a manual 1/1 test shot. They were shooting from each side of the statue and pointed almost right at each other. I wanted the reflection of the flash, not the illumination since people on the other side would also be lit up. When the pyro went off, I started exposing and yelled "NOW!" and they both fired. I chimped the shot, and:
_PAS5056.jpg

(Gallery here: http://www.thecalderwoods.org/tom/DLand-071027a/index.html)

It took a while to figure out this shot, and even longer to wait for the right conditions (least of which was that I would be able to get in to even shap it!). I think it took almost a year between concept thought and execution.

Oh, and a side effect of this shot is that line of blue dots along the bottom of the shot. I couldn't figure it out, until I just blew out the picture to see what it was - it's small point-n-shoot cameras, small vid cams and cell phones being held up trying to catch the fireworks. ; ;)
 
As a last resort, there's always playing with curves in Photoshop and using the history brush to make the smoke go away.
 
Yeah, sometimes it's a once-in-a-lifetime shot, and the wind and location could not be helped. For those, pick your favs and work on those. Don't try to do them all. Using curves and black levels will get you there, some cloaning and history brushing helps. I also try to keep the big picture in mind and not focus on those single pesky pixels. Do a full frame and make sure you don't blitz the whole thing out trying to get that one spot finished. ; ::)
 
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