Camera settings for the 4th of July

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I wanted to answer a question I received from a reader this July following the 4th about settings within the camera. What are the best settings for the independence Day fireworks. While I can't say what's best for every camera, lens and degree of darkness or sunny vs cloudy skies, I can demonstrate how settings can affect shooting fireworks with the following photos. These are all shot with a Canon 30D and a 24-105mm. This top photo has a stop at F/4 with the focal length at 105mm, ISO at 1600 and focus on Matrix for a 0.5 sec exposure.




This second shot has a stop at F/7 with the focal length at 105mm, ISO at 1600 and focus on Matrix for a 1.3 sec exposure.




And the last shot has a stop at F/4 with the focal length at 105mm, ISO at 1600 and focus on Matrix for a 0.01255 (1/80) sec exposure.

The thing one is always advised to do is to use a tripod. But that can get pretty hard to lug around and to spin around as these bursts are constantly being shot up into the air from different ground sites. What can happen if there is too long an exposure can certainly make for an out of focus result. But all of these were hand held with fairly short duration exposures, though the 1.3 second exposure was certainly a bonus for being hand held, I assume I was very calm at the time. So on these occasions it is wise to open the lens to a low F number and a high ISO. It gathers a lot of light from both settings while lasting only as long as the burst allows. Wish I could figure out how to allow you to send pics you got but as far as I know Blogspot doesn't allow for that option, if you know different please let me know.


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