Set your camera to ISO 100, f/11, and a 2.5-second exposure in Bulb mode. Those three numbers are the foundation of every great fireworks photograph, and once you understand why each one matters, you will never again come home from a fireworks show with nothing but blurry smears of light and a sense of frustration.
Fireworks photography sits in a sweet spot between technical precision and creative instinct. The explosions are bright but brief, the sky is dark but not uniformly so, and the entire show unfolds on a timeline you cannot control. That combination makes it one of the most rewarding challenges in night photography — and one of the most approachable once you have the right settings locked in.
The reason ISO 100 works is that firework bursts are genuinely bright light sources against a dark sky. You do not need high sensitivity. The reason f/11 works is that it provides enough depth of field to keep both the bursts and any foreground elements sharp, while also controlling the intensity of the light trails. And the reason a multi-second exposure works is that fireworks are not a single flash — they are a bloom that unfolds over time. A longer shutter speed captures the full arc of each trail from launch to fade.
What You Need
A sturdy tripod is non-negotiable. Even a 2-second exposure will produce camera shake if you are hand-holding. You do not need the most expensive carbon fiber legs on the market — a $40 aluminum tripod that locks firmly will serve you well. What matters is that it does not wobble in a breeze.
A remote shutter release (wired or wireless) lets you open and close the shutter without touching the camera body. If you do not have one, use your camera’s built-in 2-second timer as a workaround, though this limits your ability to time bursts precisely.
Any camera with manual exposure control will work. A wide-angle lens in the 16-35mm range gives you flexibility to capture both the sky and the surrounding scene. If you only have a kit lens at 18-55mm, set it to 18mm and you will be fine.
Optional but helpful: a small flashlight or headlamp with a red mode so you can see your camera controls without destroying your night vision, and a lens cloth for condensation on humid summer evenings.
Camera Settings Breakdown
Here is a reference table for your starting point and common adjustments:
| Setting | Starting Value | Bright Show | Distant Show | Multiple Bursts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ISO | 100 | 100 | 200 | 100 |
| Aperture | f/11 | f/14 | f/8 | f/11 |
| Shutter Speed | 2-4 sec | 1-2 sec | 4-6 sec | 6-10 sec |
| Focus | Manual, infinity | Manual, infinity | Manual, infinity | Manual, infinity |
| White Balance | Daylight (5500K) | Daylight (5500K) | Daylight (5500K) | Daylight (5500K) |
| Mode | Bulb / Manual | Bulb / Manual | Bulb / Manual | Bulb / Manual |
Why Daylight white balance? Fireworks are designed to produce vivid colors — reds, greens, blues, golds. Auto white balance will try to “correct” these toward neutral, washing out the very thing that makes the image striking. Locking to Daylight (around 5500K) preserves those colors faithfully.
Why manual focus? Autofocus struggles in the dark and may hunt during exposures. Before the show starts, focus on a distant light source (a streetlamp, building lights, or the moon), then switch your lens to manual focus so it stays locked. If your lens has a hard infinity stop, that works too — but verify it with a test shot, because many modern lenses focus slightly past infinity.
Shoot in RAW. The dynamic range in a fireworks scene is extreme — deep black sky next to intensely bright trails. RAW files give you far more latitude to recover highlights and lift shadows in post-processing.
Step-by-Step Process
1. Scout Your Location Early
Arrive at least 60 to 90 minutes before the show. You need time to find a spot where the launch site is visible, the foreground is interesting, and other spectators will not step in front of your tripod.
Look for locations that give you context: a skyline, a body of water that will reflect the bursts, a monument, or a bridge. Fireworks against plain sky are fine, but fireworks above a recognizable landmark tell a story. Check the wind direction too — smoke drifts downwind, and after 10 minutes of heavy launches, a thick haze can obscure later bursts. Position yourself upwind when possible.
If this is a show you attend annually, use a compass or mapping app to note the exact launch point relative to your position. Many municipal shows launch from the same spot each year, so your scouting work pays off repeatedly.
2. Set Up Your Tripod and Frame
Set your tripod as low as practical if you are in a crowd — this reduces the chance of someone bumping it. Level the head carefully. A tilted horizon is especially noticeable in fireworks shots because the trails create strong vertical lines that reveal any lean.
Frame wider than you think you need. Fireworks are unpredictable in height and spread. A burst you expected at 50 degrees above the horizon might appear at 70. You can always crop tighter in post, but you cannot recover what was outside your frame. At 18mm on a crop sensor (equivalent to about 27mm full-frame), you will have plenty of room.
Turn off image stabilization. On a tripod, the stabilization system can actually introduce micro-vibrations as it tries to compensate for movement that is not there. This is true for both in-body and lens-based stabilization.
3. Dial In Your Base Settings
Switch to Manual mode or Bulb mode. Set ISO 100, aperture f/11, and if using Manual, start with a 3-second shutter speed. If using Bulb, you will control the duration with your remote release.
Bulb mode is preferable because it lets you react to what you see: press the button as a shell launches, hold it as the burst blooms, and release when the trails begin to fade. This gives you precise control over how much light each frame collects. A typical single burst lasts 2 to 4 seconds, so your exposures will naturally fall in that range.
Set your drive mode to single shot. Continuous shooting is not useful here — you want deliberate, timed exposures, not rapid fire.
4. Time the Bursts
This is where practice and attention matter most. Watch the launch — you will often hear the thump of the mortar a second or two before the burst appears. Open your shutter on the launch and close it after the burst reaches full bloom.
For the finale, when dozens of shells fire in rapid succession, shorten your exposures to 1-2 seconds or stop down to f/14 or f/16. The cumulative brightness of overlapping bursts can easily blow out your highlights if you keep the same settings you used for single shells.
A useful rhythm: watch one burst without shooting to gauge the timing, then shoot the next three, then review. This keeps you from falling into a pattern of shooting blindly and hoping for the best.
5. Review and Adjust Between Salvos
After your first few exposures, check the histogram on your camera’s LCD. The histogram should show a large peak on the left (the dark sky) with smaller peaks toward the right (the bright trails). If the bright peaks are jammed against the right edge, your highlights are blown — stop down by one stop or shorten your exposure.
Zoom in on a review image to check sharpness. If the trails look soft, your focus may have shifted. Re-check your manual focus point.
Also check for light pollution in the lower portion of the frame. Ground-level lights, other spectators’ phone screens, and the ambient glow of the launch site can create unwanted bright areas. Adjust your framing if needed.
6. Experiment with Multiple Bursts
Once you have solid single-burst exposures dialed in, try layering. Open the shutter for 6 to 10 seconds to capture two or three bursts in one frame. This creates a fuller, more dramatic sky. Keep your aperture at f/11 or narrower to avoid overexposure from the accumulated light.
Another creative technique: during a long exposure, gently rotate your zoom ring from wide to tight (or vice versa). This creates radiating streaks from the center of each burst, giving an abstract, explosive quality to the trails. Start with a 4-second exposure and zoom slowly and smoothly.
You can also use a piece of black card held in front of the lens (not touching it) as a makeshift shutter. Open the camera’s shutter, remove the card when a burst fires, replace it between bursts, and close the shutter after you have collected two or three. This “hat trick” technique gives you precise control over which bursts appear in the frame.
Common Mistakes and Fixes
Mistake 1: Exposures are completely white or washed out. This almost always means your shutter was open too long during a dense salvo, or your ISO was too high. Drop to ISO 100 if you are not already there, and shorten your exposure to 1-2 seconds during the finale. If single bursts are still overexposed, stop down to f/14 or f/16.
Mistake 2: Trails are short nubs instead of full arcs. Your shutter speed is too fast. Fireworks need time to bloom. Extend your exposure to 3-4 seconds for single bursts. If you are in Manual mode with a fixed shutter speed, switch to Bulb so you can hold the shutter open for the full duration of each burst.
Mistake 3: Images are sharp but the colors look dull or gray. Check your white balance. If it is set to Auto, the camera is likely neutralizing the warm golds and cool blues. Switch to Daylight (5500K) or Tungsten (3200K) for cooler, more vivid blues and greens. Shooting RAW lets you adjust this freely in post.
Mistake 4: Everything is slightly soft or blurry. Three likely culprits: autofocus hunting during the exposure (switch to manual focus), image stabilization fighting the tripod (turn it off), or camera shake from pressing the shutter button (use a remote release or the 2-second self-timer).
Mistake 5: Smoke obscures the later bursts. Reposition upwind if you can. If you are stuck, watch for moments when the wind clears the smoke and shoot in those gaps. In post-processing, you can reduce haze somewhat, but heavy smoke is hard to fix. The first few minutes of a show are usually the cleanest.
Taking It Further
Once you are comfortable with single-location shooting, try these advanced approaches:
Foreground silhouettes. Place a recognizable shape — a tree, a statue, a person — in the lower third of your frame. Expose for the fireworks and let the foreground go dark. The contrast between the bright sky and the black silhouette creates a powerful compositional anchor.
Reflections. If there is a lake, river, or even a large puddle near the launch site, include the reflection in your frame. The reflected bursts double the visual impact and add symmetry. You will need to tilt your camera down and lose some sky, so go wider (14-16mm) to compensate.
Steel wool composites. In post-processing, stack multiple exposures from the same tripod position using lighten blend mode. Each frame contributes its brightest pixels, building up a sky full of bursts that may have been spread across several minutes of the show.
Intentional camera movement. During a long exposure, deliberately pan or rotate the camera for abstract light paintings. This is unpredictable and produces plenty of throwaways, but the occasional result can be genuinely striking.
ShutterCoach Connection
After the show, load your favorite fireworks shots into ShutterCoach for feedback on composition, exposure balance, and color. The app can help you identify whether your timing was slightly early or late, whether your framing left too much empty sky, and how to refine your settings for next time — so each fireworks show you photograph becomes a step forward in your growth as a night photographer.