The photo in this post was taken on July 1st, 2006 at the Mohawk Valley Independence Day Celebration over the Graeagle Mill Pond in Blairsden. The camera was a Canon 20D with a 17-40LÂ f4.0 zoom lens. The exposure was 30 seconds at f9.0 with the zoom at 17mm at ISO 200 taken at 9:41 pm.
Several factors make for a good fireworks photo. The first and most important is the use of a tripod to steady the camera during the long exposure. Usually you want to get three on four bursts on each exposure. So somewhere between a 20 second and 40 second exposure is required. The next important factor in a good photo is to find a way to frame to fireworks. You can do by either including an object on the ground to give size and dimension to the fireworks, or using something to create a silhouette around the fireworks. That’s what I did in this photo as the pine trees are silhouetted against the fireworks.
