How To Take Sparkling Firework Photos!

It's almost the fourth of July, next Saturday to be exact! What are your plans to celebrate? We all love to sound off multiple fireworks every year, but the kids favorite has always been spelling out their names, or making shapes with the handheld sparklers. Have you ever wondered how to capture that perfect picture of the sparklers in action? It's actually quite simple, this is how its done!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

• Sparklers & lighter or matches
• DSLR camera or point-and-shoot camera
• Tripod or a flat, sturdy surface
• Friends (1 or more)

 HOW TO SHOOT “SPARKLER ART”:

If you are using a point-and-shoot, set your camera to “night-scene.” While on night-scene, you won’t have to make any f-stop or shutter adjustments.

For DSLRs, set the camera to “manual.” Adjust your aperture to 16 and your ISO to 1000. Your shutter speed, for a non-flash photo, should be about 3 seconds to capture the sparkler’s light, as well as illuminate your friends a little bit.

(I like to put my camera on the “Shutter Preferred” mode – on my Nikon it’s the “S” mode. Using the S setting on the camera allows you to tell the camera to set everything else…except the shutter speed.)

Once you get your settings down, put your camera on a tripod or a flat, sturdy surface to insure that you camera stays totally still. Since your shutter will stay open for so long, any movement of the camera will affect the outcome of your picture.

Just a fun design!

Now you’re ready for sparklers! Decide if you want to spell something out or just make a fun design. Once the photographer pushes down the shutter release (the button you press to take the picture) start drawing your desired design in the air with your sparkler. Draw it as many times as you can while the shutter stays open. Drawing slowly creates a thicker sparkler line, while quicker drawing creates a thinner one.

If you are spelling something out, you’ll have to spell it backwards for it to turn out right in the photo (or you can flip it horizontally in your image editing program.)

Try out a few pictures and adjust the shutter speed up (or faster) if the pictures are too bright, and down (slower) if the pictures are too dark. Once you get the exposure set you can go crazy with sparklers!

Have fun taking your photos! And be safe with your fireworks :)

 *If you have a fancy DSLR camera that you have no idea how to use, I recommend this awesome series by The Pioneer Woman.

Brought to you by: One Good Thing by Jillee