How To Photograph Fireworks

Photographing fireworks is a lot of fun, and can yield some very interesting photographs.  Every photograph is unique.  In order to photograph fireworks you need to have a tripod.  Without a tripod you will not be able to have the long shutter speeds that you need to photograph the fireworks.  Because in order to photograph fireworks you need to use long shutter speeds somewhere between 2-4 or more seconds, depending on how many fireworks you want in the shot.

Here are the camera settings you need to use.
1.  Low ISO settings, 100 or 200
2.  Shutter Speed about 4 seconds
3.  F-Stop around F18 to F22
4.  You also need to use a timer or a shutter release cable to minimize vibration

You need to use low ISO because the fireworks are so bright so you don't need a high ISO,  also the higher the ISO the more smoke you will pick up in your photograph.  The smoke drowns out the fireworks so you really should not use high ISO.  Shutter speeds need to be long in order to capture the exploding firework shells.  If you try and shoot with a fast shutter speed you most likely wont get the desired shot.  F-stops need to be high as well because it will make the aperture opening smaller which will cut down on the amount of light that is allowed into the camera. This is necessary because the fireworks are so bright compared to the dark background and you are also using long shutter speeds so you can't allow as much light in.  I also highly recommend using a timer or shutter release because you do not want the tripod to shake at all, including you clicking the shutter release.

This is how I photographed my firework shots.  So try it out and play around with these settings.  These settings seemed to work very good for me, but depending on the camera, different settings may work better than others.  Also if you photograph single fireworks you can put them together after words using photo editing software.  The shot above is 4 separate images together.