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With July 4th coming up just next week (for those of you in the U.S.), this is a great time to talk about how to photograph fireworks. Fireworks can be a fun diversion from your normal “take pictures of the kids” routine, and you only get a few opportunities a year to do it. So here’s what you need to know to take great photos on Wednesday night.

1. Plan your composition. You’ll want to decide ahead of time how you want your photos to look. Do you have any landmarks you want included in the frame? Trees? Think about these early and plan out your strategy.

2. Choose a lens with proper focal lengths. With fireworks, you don’t know where they’re going to go off in the sky. Because of this, wider focal lengths will give you a better chance at catching the action. That huge 400 mm lens won’t do you any good here if you never catch any fireworks. Keep your shots a little wider, but don’t be afraid to get in tight and really fill the frame with color once in a while, once you know where the action is.

3. Use a tripod. You’ll be taking long exposures, and without a way to keep that camera stable, any camera movement will show up in the form of blurred everything. If you don’t use a tripod, use some other way to keep your camera absolutely still.

4. Use a remote shutter release. This will allow you to trigger your camera’s shutter without touching it and causing shake. Another option is to use the self timer, but this will make it hard to anticipate firework shots. If you don’t have a remote release and don’t want to use the timer, make sure you have a very stout tripod so that you can gingerly use your finger to trigger the camera.

5. Use a smaller aperture. Fireworks are quite bright, so a smaller aperture works great, somewhere in the f/8 to f/16 range. This will allow you to have the longer shutter speeds needed to catch the action.

6. Use bulb mode. Your shutter speed is probably the most important part of this whole thing. Make it too long and you’ll catch too many bursts in the same area (thus blowing out the colors). Make it too short and you won’t catch the motion of the bursts as they streak across the frame. So if you use bulb mode, you can anticipate the burst and open the shutter right before. Then hold the shutter open long enough to get the burst (or a few bursts in different areas of the frame), and close the shutter. If you use timed shutter speeds, you have no control and will end up with photos that have bursts cut off before their done and other problems.

7. Use ISO 100. The lower the ISO, the cleaner and more free of noise your shots will be. Fireworks generate a lot of light, so the reduced sensitivity won’t be an issue.

8. Shut the flash off. There’s no reason for it, and if you have any near foreground in your frame, it will show up brightly and be distracting. The exception to this is if you intentionally want a foreground lit up and have enough light to do it. For example, you might have a famous statue (something smaller than Lady Liberty please) with fireworks in the background. A touch of light on the statue could really make the pictures pop. For brownie points, try out some gels on that flash to really take it over the top.

9. Shoot in manual modes. This is obvious for exposure, since you’re going to use bulb mode. But also use manual focus. Your camera isn’t going to auto focus well in the low light and constantly moving fireworks. Go manual and your shooting will be much easier. Another thing to remember is if you’re using a smaller aperture, your depth of field is increased and those small errors in focus will slip by unnoticed. Don’t forget to refocus when you recompose your shot using zoom lenses. If you’re far enough from the show, you can set the focus to infinity and forget it all together.

10. Go for the early shots. As more fireworks go off, more smoke fills the air. If you make the most of those first bursts, you’ll get clearer pictures. If you’re still getting set up when the show starts, you’ve missed the best part. So get set up early.

11. Decide on in camera noise reduction or not. Some cameras have a custom function (my Canon 20D has one) for reducing noise on long exposures. It works great, but it takes a good ten seconds of processing time after the picture is taken. You have to decide whether you want to let the camera do the work for you and risk losing shots during the show, or take more shots and fix them in the digital darkroom later. I prefer to fix them myself later. After all, I’d rather fix a noisy shot than not have a shot to fix at all.

12. Get some black card stock or foam core. One way to help cut down on ambient light leaking in to your exposure and get multiple shots in one frame is to use some black foam core board, or gator board. Open the shutter in bulb mode and put the board over the lens. Then remove it for a burst, then cover it again. Remove it for the next burst, etc. This will yield a nice clean image with multiple bursts in one frame.

I do hope you’ll get out and try this easy and fun diversion from your usual. Your family will love it and you’ll get to have some fun photo time. If you do take some pictures, don’t forget to post your results in the Sublime Light photo pool so everyone can enjoy them. Happy 4th!