Shooting Fireworks

One of the things I've been shooting that I had not expected to be shooting when I started photography but enjoy doing is shooting fireworks.

shot last night at a new Melbourne estate of Woodlea during their Flavour Fest festival. 2.9sec

Timing is everything with fireworks, but it's not too tricky. The key is to be set up before hand and watch the show. Because it is at night, a tripod is a must. Being at night allows you to be very flexible with your shutter speed too. For this reason I set my camera up at ISO100 (low noise), F8 (sharp and depth of field) and shoot in BULB mode using a remote.
With the previously mentioned settings, a typical shot without fireworks would be quite dark. The difference between a 0.5sec exposure and a 4sec exposure is minimal and will still look dark. The key is that the fireworks are a bright source of light in an otherwise dark background. This means that you need shorter exposures when a lot is going on and longer exposures when the firing is slower.

3.6sec

Very short exposures will have less of the typical streaky explosion look about them

1/5sec

And sometimes its just a matter of guessing and hoping. With a lot going on I try and time it so I open the shutter when I hear the firing, then close the shutter about 0.5-1sec after the bang in the sky. The camera can feel a bit sluggish when it's writing the image or trying to show you the preview and you're trying to press it again to capture the next one. And other times my shutter stays down after holding the button for 2sec so I need to release and press it again to stop the exposure and then press again to start a new one. Confused? I get a little like that when there is so much going on too.
With only 7-8min to capture as much as I can, I still have to take a moment to check a preview to make sure the wind isn't blowing the display out of the frame or if I'm exposing correctly. You can plan as much as you want thinking you have a wide enough shot to fit everything and then the wind starts blowing towards you covering you in smoke and having fireworks go off directly above you instead of in front.

the wind was blowing everything to the left of frame, I had to pick my position and angle to get the ground display and the aerials. It doesn't always all fit. This was a different display to the previous shots