We hope you’ve had a great Fourth of July weekend so far! Whether you’re celebrating up at your cottage, on the lake or staying home, we have some great tutorials to help you make the most of your holiday weekend.
Check out this fun fireworks animation from our friends over at Plotaverse. See how you can make great photos over the Fourth of July below, and don’t forget to share your favorite firework photos in the Photofocus Community, too!
Get ready to photograph fireworks
Create one-of-a-kind flower firework photos - When you are looking to create something different when capturing fireworks, try your hand at making firework flower images. My friend Heidi Mixon shared this primer on getting started in this creative capture method. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but I can’t wait! Here’s how she does it. Gear You need the basics including camera, lens in the 50–200mm range, a tripod and remote trigger. Heidi also suggests an ND filter. Preparation You’ll want to know your lens, and EXACTLY where your focus is tack-sharp, which is usually just a smidge before infinity. Test your tripod to make sure it’s rock steady. Tighten those legs, as you’ll have your hand on the lens during exposure. Practice using your remote control in conjunction with the shutter release using Bulb mode. Camera settings These are a bit different from normal fireworks capture. Heidi says a range of apertures from f/2.8 to f/7.1 work well. Work the shutter between 1–2 second exposures. Taking the shot Find the right spot in the sky when the first burst appears in the sky. Point your lens roughly where you see fireworks going off. Starting with focus at infinity fingers at 12 and 6 o’clock, find the tack sharp spot, roughly fingers at 1 and 7 o’clock (just past infinity), then rotate fingers to 2 and 8 o’clock. This will ensure you start out of focus to begin. Begin the exposure shortly before you predict the explosion. When the fireworks explode, quickly refocus your lens throughout the explosion until you reach the tack-sharp focal point. This step can be frustrating and it takes practice. Once the perfect focus is achieved, end the exposure by releasing the shutter button (Bulb mode). Variations Play. The opposite effect can be applied by starting in focus and de-focusing during the explosion which will give you a blurry look. Varying the f-stop will change the width of the petals. At f/7.1, you’ll achieve long and thin petals. At f/2.8, thicker petals will result, and this can be where the ND filter comes in strong. A wide-open aperture will result in overexposure and lack of color. Post processing Heidi says post production on the captures using this method is minimal. Most of the work is done in camera. Crop tight on the desired burst. Use curves or levels to darken the sky and add a touch of Vibrance to enhance color. Heidi’s parting thoughts Have fun! Know that your arm will be sore the following day from the new focusing movement. Hers always does! Be patient it takes practice to get the best results. If you try it out, Heidi would love to see your results. Put your favorites in the comments below, and don’t forget to share them on the Photofocus Community! Thanks a bunch to Heidi for sharing her process! Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
Seven ideas to get solid fireworks photos - When celebrations push exploding colored lighting into the heavens it’s time to break out a camera. Fireworks photography is a blast! Grab your tripod A sturdy tripod on a sturdy surface is important for solid fireworks images. I once set my tripod on a wooden deck with people moving a bit. Needless to say, all of my fireworks trails were a mess and pretty much unusable. Quite a disappointment. I push my tripod use and here is a set up I used last year to support three cameras. Each camera is triggered by either an iPad or iPhone so I don’t touch the cameras and avoid all shake. A good base will allow the fireworks trails to read nicely with no “jitters.” Look at your exposure Aperture, shutter speed and ISO equals your exposure triangle. ISO I recommend using the native ISO of your camera. For micro four-thirds, which I use, that is ISO 200. If you are shooting a full-frame camera ISO 100 is your best bet for quality captures. If you have a choice you’ll want to have a lower ISO vs. higher for capturing longer trails. Aperture Your aperture can vary dependent on the look you would like. Try f/8 to f/14. The smaller your aperture the longer you can have your shutter open. The aperture will also control any light in the scene. After it gets dark and before the fireworks start, take a few test exposures to see how any lights in your scene will render. Time exposure We are literally writing with light. The light needs time to move through the frame to be recorded. Light trails falling back to earth give you a sense of movement in a still frame. In going through my older images to find samples I found shorter exposures of one second that led to unexciting captures. My more successful exposures range from three to five seconds which consistently give me interesting trails. In-camera processing Olympus pioneered some computational captures that work great for fireworks. Live Composite mode allows you to watch as the fireworks build on your screen. You can then end the exposure when you feel you have enough bursts captured in a single frame. On the Olympus E-M1X and the E-M1 Mark III, you set the exposure for your initial exposure making sure to not overexpose your background. When you trigger the exposure the camera will repeat that exposure until you stop. But, it only records additional light … not shadows. The Live Composite mode also works great for lightning, star trail and car light trail images, too. Post-production Once you have made your images they can fall a little flat upon review. There are some good bursts, some blown out a little or in the wrong place in the frame. Time for a little Photoshop magic. Pick your favorite images and work them together. There is a little Blend Mode magic. To start, load your individual captures as Layers. Then change the Blend Mode of the Layer to Screen. This will make everything that is dark disappear — all that remains is the fireworks. At that point, you can maneuver the fireworks to fill out the frame. If there are pieces you wish to remove for the good of the composition you can add a mask to the Layer and remove them. Photography association membership and experimentation Being a member of photo groups and associations can help in many ways to improve your photography. Sharing ideas makes all photographers become stronger. I’m a member of Arizona Professional Photographers Association. Even though I present programs to photography organizations I constantly learn from fellow members. Case in point. AZPPA member Heidi Mixon shared this creative concept for getting a totally different result while photographing fireworks. She suggests changing focus during the capture of the fireworks burst. The resulting images look as if there are flowers floating in the sky. Since Heidi was good enough to share her whole process with us, I’m devoting another post to her technique. I think you’ll enjoy it! Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
Fireworks photos made easy: Getting the most bang out of your images - Mike Martin is a gifted Chicago-based photographer. He excels in various genres of photography, including portraiture and yes, fireworks. I caught up with him to ask how he creates such beautiful fireworks images. Location, location, location I asked him how he goes about choosing the best locations for photographing fireworks for the Fourth of July and other times. “I’ve been lucky that in the Chicago suburbs there are many opportunities for superb fireworks displays,” he said. But of course, there was more to it than that. Mike manages to strike a balance between family and getting great photos as well. “As the Independence Day fireworks displays are often a family affair it is often a compromise between the ideal location and being near friends and family during the show. We’ve found a spot that is further away from where most of the crowds gather and where I also have a slightly elevated perspective.” Do you need the latest and greatest camera for fireworks? Mike discussed what sort of camera he uses. What he says is important for many to take to heart since we are continually inundated with advertisements imploring us to upgrade to the shiniest new camera. “Any relatively modern DSLR or mirrorless camera is fine. When I got back into photography I started out with what I could afford which was a Canon T2i and while I’ve upgraded my cameras several times since then, the truth is that nearly any digital camera made in the last decade with a kit lens can capture amazing fireworks.” Lens choices Mike also discussed what sort of lens he chooses. Notice again that what he mentions is modest. “A kit 18-55mm lens will likely give you the range that you need on a crop sensor camera. The exact focal length will depend on your location but generally speaking the wider the angle, the better. I’ve also found that using telephoto lenses and zooming in on some of the action can provide a unique perspective.” Avoiding the shakes I asked Mike about other equipment he uses. “A high quality tripod is essential. Since these will be longer exposures you’ll need to be certain that the camera is completely stable.” You also want to avoid vibrations from the camera. Mike says, “Ideally you want some type of wireless shutter release so you’re touching the camera once you’re set up. However, the built-in 2-second timer on your camera can also work in a pinch. Another option if your camera supports it is time-lapse. Simply have the camera continuously shoot from beginning of the show to the end.” This last method can be done in a number of ways, including using an intervalometer, or simply setting the camera to Continuous Burst mode, then locking your shutter release so that it continually fires. This is also the way many people create star trails or time-lapse videos. How to focus to achieve sharp fireworks images Mike says, “Unlike typical night photography there is often plenty of light for focus as soon as the fireworks begin. Although you may initially be able to rely on autofocus, once you get focus you’ll want to switch your lens over to manual focus so it stays locked. In the darker conditions I use the Live Mode, located on the rear LCD display, and zoom in using the display and manually focus.” Camera settings Many photographers like arriving early, getting set up and adjusting the camera settings. Also, many fireworks photographers prefer photographing the first part of the display, when there is less smoke. Mike continues, “The real trick to photographing fireworks is capturing the event from the launch, through its initial burst, and all the way through the trail of light and colors afterward. By watching the fireworks and counting you can see that the event of just a single firework can easily be 5—12 seconds. “In order to get these longer exposure times, you’ll need to keep a low ISO, somewhere around ISO 100—250, and to stop down the lens to f/8–f/11. These settings help you get the longer shutter speed times you need. Around eight seconds is a good place to start. During a finale or particularly busy part of the show, slightly shorter exposures may be needed.” Random encounters And the fascinating part of long exposure is that you frequently will not be sure what you’ll get when you open that shutter. No problem. Mike says, “[My] best advice is to just keep shooting. There is quite a bit of randomness during a fireworks display. Even if you open the shutter at the launch of a firework you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get.” As usual, you may click on each photo to enlarge it and see the camera settings. Mike Martin is not only known for his portraits. He’s also gifted with landscapes, wildlife, event photography, weddings, fireworks, city skylines, product photography and more. He has an exquisite eye for lighting and detail. Find out more about him by visiting his website.Take your fireworks shots to the next level
Finish Fireworks Photos in Lightroom! It’s Easy - Welcome to the morning after the night before when you shot all of those photographs of fireworks. If you are like me, you have at least a hundred or more waiting for you to do all of the post production work on them. This is not a mountain to climb. it’s a fun little molehill to step over. The power of AutoSync AutoSync is Lightoom’s RAW batch processor. When it’s on, every change made to the most selected photo showing in the content area of the Develop module is applied to all of the selected photos. While there are times that this could pose a big problem, custom cropping for example, it works very well when there are similar photos that want to get to good starting place for subtle refinements. AutoSync is perfect for fireworks. Turning AutoSync On When only one photo is selected in the Develop module, the only choice for synchronizing settings is Previous. Click it will apply the last group of setting to the currently selected photo. When more than one photo is selected, the most selected version (it’s the one with the brighter highlight and is displayed in the content area) Previous changes to Sync. Clicking Sync brings up a dialog box of all available settings, each with its own checkbox. This allows synchronizing only the setting chosen to the rest of the selected photographs. Click the switch to the left of Sync and the button’s name changes to AutoSync. Any change made to the most selected photo is applied to the rest of the selection with no further fuss. Remember that any change made in the Develop module is always undo-able at anytime in the future. No change is permanent. Settings for enhancing fireworks photos Here is a list of the settings I use for my fireworks photographs in order by panel. I’ve provided an explanation where the setting I choose might be confusing. Basic panel – White Balance Fireworks tend to create warm and vibrant colors. I choose Daylight for the white balance. This makes the oranges and yellows (the fire part of fireworks) show up nicely. Tungsten or Incandescent white balance cancels them out by returning those colors to white. Basic panel – Whites & Blacks The Whites and Blacks sliders set the brightest highlight and darkest shadow area in the photo. I love these for cleaning up the sky. Blacks is particularly good at this. Use the tools by first holding down the Option (WIN: Alt) key. Click the Whites slider. The preview goes black except for maybe really small sparkles. This is good. Leave the Whites alone. If there is a huge amount of white showing, the photo is over exposed. Lower the Exposure slider then check Whites again. TIP: Holding down Option (WIN: Alt) works with Exposure too. Still holding down the Option (WIN: Alt) click the Blacks slider at its default setting of 0. You’ll probably see a white screen with very few colors in the sky like the photo on the left. Move the Blacks control to the left and the sky becomes progressively more black. The middle photo shows Blacks at -20. By -28 only a tiny bit of color remains outside of the burst itself. If you have to move the slider much more to the left than -35 or so, once again, the photo is over exposed. Basic panel – Presence My favorite settings for fireworks are Clarity, Vibrance and Saturation–the Presence sliders. Clarity +40 Vibrance +40 Saturation +30 Clarity brings out the fine detail. Vibrance works on the middle, complimentary colors. Saturation hits them all, especially the primaries: red, green and blue. Detail panel – Sharpening Set this at +100 and move on. Lens Corrections panel – Chromatic Aberration & Lens Profile Corrections Check both boxes. Done. In rare instances, the Profile will display a different brand lens than the one you have. Click the dropdown menu and choose your lens’ manufacturer. All will be well. Done! With AutoSync on, all of the work you just did has propagated to every selected photo. If you want to amp up individual colors; there a post I wrote for that here. All that’s left is to choose your favorite to share with family, friends, and Facebook followers. You can easily composite your fireworks together to make an closing extravaganza of your own. I’ll post a tutorial soon.
Create Your Own Fireworks Grand Finale - Last weekend I spent time in Chicago for the Out of Chicago Conference. On my last night there, fellow author Levi Sim and myself hosted a photowalk for attendees. Our small group was able to check out the University Club, which overlooks Millennium Park, on Saturday night. And it was just in time for the Saturday night fireworks. With my new Vanguard Veo 2 tripod in tow, we made our way up to the balcony. Instead of focusing distinctly on the fireworks, I wanted to capture the environment around them. It was Pride Weekend in Chicago, and one of the main buildings surrounding Millennium Park had spelled out “PRIDE” in its window. Capturing various different shots of the fireworks allowed me to create a unique scene that would be rarely seen. And while I was happy with my 13-second exposures, I wanted more. Specifically, I wanted more fireworks. I wanted the biggest grand finale I could create. To do this, I had to get creative with my post-processing. Blend Modes in Photoshop I brought all three images into Photoshop by right-clicking them in Lightroom and selecting “Open as Layers in Photoshop.” From there, the process is pretty straight-forward. I chose the first image as my “base” image, and then the other two were layered on top of it. Those two photographs I selected the blend mode in Photoshop to “Lighten.” This allows you to keep the brighter parts of a layer — for instance, fireworks and car trails — while letting the others fall behind (the darker trees and buildings). In a nutshell, it blends the brightest parts of your image together with your other layers. Final Adjustments in Lightroom From there, I brought the final image back into Lightroom. Because I was shooting with a wide angle lens, I straightened the image so the building with “PRIDE” on it was no longer leaning. I also cropped the bottom of the photograph, to get rid of the railing screen that was reflecting a blue hue. I also boosted the clarity, vibrance and saturation. I usually do this in a lot of my images, but with fireworks especially, this helps to add a bit of “pop” to the photograph. I also reduced the highlights just slightly, enough where the brighter areas weren’t completely blinding. Finally, I adjusted the tint. The initial photographs were taken with the “Cloudy” white balance setting, meaning they were a bit warm. I added back a bit of blue and also added some green to further show the trees in the park. Conclusion Not all of us have the ability to go to a big city and capture some amazing fireworks. But with a little creativity, you can blend photographs together using Photoshop layers and blend modes, creating the ultimate grand finale.
You photographed fireworks – now what? - We all love to get out to try and capture the spectacle of fireworks during the Fourth of July holiday. Sometimes we do better than others. And, sometimes we’ve done better than we thought. Let’s talk about some post-processing ideas. The Chicago skyline you see above was made the same basic time as the fireworks. Unfortunately, the fireworks show was way to the right of the city. I rectified that error and moved the fireworks over the skyline to be more in line with my vision. Initial post-production It’s a great idea to take all your images through a quick run in your software whether it is Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom or other choice. My post-production workflow system uses Adobe Bridge, Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) and Photoshop. Most of these techniques work the same but may have slightly different names or control positions for the functions. Adobe Bridge is used for my first run through images is to cull the mistimed, overexposed or poorly composed photos that I know I never wish to see again. I also use keyboard shortcuts to rate images I absolutely know are winners with a four and those I’m sure will shine with some extra work as a three. Hold down the Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (PC) key and then the numbers 1-5 to apply the rating. If you have multiple images that will receive the same rating highlight them and that rating will be applied to all selected images. Using Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (PC) and 0 (zero) will reset the choice of any selected images to no rating. Next I grab the rated images rated three and four and open in ACR. I select all and hit the images with a combination of settings. Start with an adjustment to the overall exposure. Lower highlights (being careful not to totally lose highlights), lower protect shadows, add a little black, a little white and lower the smoke. Add a little Vibrance without overdoing it and work with adding or subtracting some Saturation. Then I take a quick run and tweak individual images for their best, adding contrast or taking away Black or White. Season to taste. To speed up the process if I see a number of images that need the same tweak I’ll select them and make the changes en masse. Once an overall adjustment has been made, make one more quick run-through of individual tweaking. Now what? If you made an image such as this one below you are pretty good to go. Great exposure and color with no blown out areas. This rocks! You can also control the final image by blending together multiple captures into a single image. The best way is to move into Photoshop and use the power of Layers and Blend Modes. Select all the bursts which you would like to work in Bridge and Menu Tools > Photoshop > Load Files into Photoshop Layers. The files will be ready to go without having to open each individually. To go further most fireworks images will be better when you have an interesting foreground rather than just the bursts against a blank sky. Water, a skyline and interesting tree or piece of architecture can add a ton of interest. In my area one of the fireworks displays occurs over an empty parking lot and another over a macadam storage site. This means it is time get creative in post-production. One caveat — I never promote these images as anything other than my imagination at work! Technique Search through your files for images with dark skies above an interesting nighttime subject. See the example above. Add pre-processed files to the dark skies. Maneuver to taste with the Blend Mode set to Screen or Lighten. The black portions of the fireworks images will disappear leaving only the burst of color. Add a mask to remove anything that you would rather not see by painting on the Mask with black. You might want to bookmark this page plus the one on photographing fireworks to have on hand before you go out to photograph next Independence Day celebration. Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
