Celebrate the Magic of Fireworks: Method #2

In the last posting I talked about photographing fireworks using a tripod, remote release and time exposures. Oh, bother. Who (besides me) wants to go through all of that nonsense when what you really want is to just go have some fun at the local fireworks and maybe come home with a few nice snapshots. Last year I went to three fireworks shows and I think I was the only photographer there with a tripod (and I kept hoping no one would trip over a tripod leg in the dark). OK, I admit it, taking a tripod to the 4th of July fireworks is a bit of a pain.

But fear not, there is a simpler way to get good fireworks shots and it has worked so well for me that, believe it or not, unless there is a really important foreground that I want to include (see yesterday's photo) I just leave the tripod in the car and shoot hand held. I still feel insecure and unprepared without a tripod (as I would in almost any situation--especially at night), but I'm sure with time (and therapy perhaps), I'll get over it.

The method for photographing fireworks using a hand-held camera is simple: just raise the ISO speed to around ISO 800 and put the camera in the automatic or programmed exposure mode and shoot. Piece of cake. Even at that fast speed, however, you may find yourself shooting at slower shutter speeds than you feel comfortable with. There's an old rule for deciding what is a safe hand-held shutter speed and that is to invert the focal length of the lens and use that fraction as the lowest shutter speed you can safely shoot without a tripod. If you're using a 100mm lens, for example, try not to shoot at a speed slower than 1/125 of a second (the closest speed to 1/100 on most cameras).

Of course, with image-stabilization technology you can probably sneak by using a shutter speed even two or maybe three stops slower than that. So, again, if you were shooting with a 100mm lens, you could probably (probably) shoot safely with a shutter speed of 1/30 or even 1/15 second. (The traditional sequence of shutter speeds in that range is: 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, etc., but many digital cameras have additional in-between speeds, as well.) I was not using image stabilization for the shot above, but managed to get a pretty sharp picture at 1/8 second because I was resting the camera on the open window frame of my car.

The wider the lens you use the better your odds are at not chopping part of the bursts off and also at capturing large bursts. I shot this photo with an 85mm lens (127mm equivalent in 35mm, roughly) which is kind of long, but I was shooting from the roof of a parking garage that was a bit far from the actual event. Still, it took me a few wasted shots to figure out just the right zoom setting to fill the fame without a lot of black space.

In terms of exposure, I've had pretty good luck using the auto-exposure modes. My D70s and D90 bodies amaze me at being so accurate in such tough situations. But if the fireworks seem to be getting over-exposed, reduce your exposure either by using exposure compensation or by switching to the shutter-priority mode and reducing the shutter speed. I try to keep the lens at about f/5.6 or f/8 and only adjust the shutter speed.

Experiment. The beauty of photographing fireworks (and almost any night subject) with a digital camera is that you can check your compositions on the LCD immediately and make the necessary adjustments in both exposure and framing.

Get Serious: Use a Tripod (Part II)

Now that I've got you convinced that it's time to buy a tripod (see previous post), let me give you some of my specific reasons why you need one--at the very least so that you can explain to your spouse why you need to spend more money on yet another photo accessory.

• Sharper pictures: Obviously this is one of the primary reasons for owning a tripod. No matter how good your image-stabilization system is, a tripod is better because it lets you shoot sharply at any shutter speed. (By the way, in most cases you should shut stabilization off when you're using a tripod because otherwise the camera make make pictures less sharp rather than more--I'll explain this in a future post.)
• More Shutter Speed Options: Using a tripod makes all shutter speeds (even time exposures) available to you. You could never take a shot like this 28-second exposure of a Ferris Wheel without a tripod--just can't be done. Similarly, if you want to create the "ribbons of water" effect in a shot of a waterfall or to create traffic streaks at night, you can't do it without a tripod. City skylines at night without a tripod? No way.
  
• Depth of Field Control: Getting extensive depth of field (near-to-far sharpness) should be a primary consideration in most types of photography (like landscapes) and unless you're shooting in bright sunlight or raise the ISO to a noisy level, you can't shoot at f/16 or f/22 without a tripod--especially as the light grows dimmer (twilight, cloudy days, misty days). I can't count the number of nice landscapes that I've ruined by not having enough depth of field before I dedicated myself to using a tripod. You can't shoot a landscape with edge-to-edge depth of field (see the previous post) without a tripod.
  
• Exposure bracketing: Exposure bracketing allows you to shoot three (or more) rapid exposures of the same scene with one press of the shutter button (in continuous shooting mode). But you will never get the exact framing in all three shots unless you have your camera on a tripod. You'll have three different exposures with three slightly different compositions--what is the point of that?
  
• High Dynamic Range Imaging: And speaking of making bracketed exposures, that's a required part of HDRI, a popular technique that consists of taking multiple identical compositions each at a different exposure setting. There's no way to align those frames exactly without using a tripod.
• Panoramic Stitching: While I've done some panoramic stitches shooting hand held, that's a very experimental way to shoot. If you really want a high quality pan shot, the camera must be mounted on a tripod.
• Slower Pace: This is, to me, one of the most important reasons for using a tripod: it slows you down. Very often photographers put quantity ahead of quality--thinking that more pictures of a subject means better results. I'd rather get one great carefully executed shot of a landscape than 20 "almost" shots.

Using a tripod forces you to consider all the elements of a potential shot: exposure, depth of field, sharpness, creative shutter speed and it lets you consider using special techniques like HDRI. By the way, it also takes the burden off of your shoulders when it comes to holding equipment all day. Personally I'd rather haul a tripod into the field for 10 minutes than try to shoot with a 400mm hand held for hours on end without one.

There, I've given you my tripod lecture!