Sydney Fireworks – a challenging subject

Photographing panoramic images of night cityscapes and fireworks on it’s own present a number of challenges. When combined together it can easily become extremely daunting. Big New Year’s Eve Sydney Fireworks happen only once a year and if not photographed correctly you’ll spend a year for the next opportunity to get it right. Here’s some tips and tricks of the trade to get that perfect panoramic fireworks cityscape image the first attempt.

The Gear

The best camera for shooting fireworks

What you need is a camera of course. Any modern camera will do the job just right. No preferences whatsoever.

Lens

If you are shooting from a distance and would like to get high level of detail use a long focal lens. We usually use lenses in 200-400mm range and take dozens of individual images which later put together into a gigapixel panorama.

Tripod

The sturdier the better. Light and flimsy tripods are not a great option for this type of photography. Heavy and steady tripod is a must. We prefer using video tripods with fluid heads instead of still photography tripods for this task. Using video tripods gives an ability to reframe shots much quicker and smoother. This speed is needed to photograph entire fireworks skyline.

Shutter Release

Absolutely essential piece of equipment is a camera shutter release. Never ever touch the release button on you camera when shooting long exposure shots. Doing that will introduce motion blur and your images end up being blurry.

Best camera settings to Photograph Fireworks

To capture the best possible fireworks photographs, you need to carefully choose the camera settings. As you will have only a few seconds and even a minor mistake can ruin the whole photograph.

The first thing you need to do is change the settings to manual.

Shutter speed: To capture those beautiful colored trails lighting up the sky, the slower shutter speed will be needed. It can be difficult to decide what exact shutter speed will be perfect for the fireworks, so the use of Bulb mode is recommended. Bulb mode allows you to control the shutter speed for as long as you keep the shutter release pressed. Due to this in-camera mode, it becomes convenient to shoot fireworks without actually knowing how long the burst will last. In order to use bulb mode, change the settings to manual, and keep turning the shutter speed all the way down until it shows Bulb or B mode. Try experimenting with shutter speeds in the 0.5-3 seconds range.

ISO: SetISO sensitivity accordingly to avoid grainy or overexposed photos. As we are using longer shutter speeds, thus there will be enough light falling into the sensor. Choose the ISO less than 200 to get clear and sharp photographs. If the photos don’t have enough exposure, try using even longer shutter speed but do not use a higher ISO.

Aperture: The more the photo is sharp, the more exceptional it will look. For the great depth of field and clear photos, start with the aperture between f/8 to f/16. This range will be the most compatible for photographing fireworks.

Avoid Flash: In this case, where we are using long exposure, the use of flash will be unnecessary. In fact, it may overexpose the foreground quite significantly and can be a hurdle in capturing the best firework photographs.

Shoot Sydney Cityscape First, Fireworks Second

The lighting levels of the night cityscape view and the fireworks display requires different levels of exposure. Lit up windows of the city buildings are usually 1-2 stops darker than the glowing lights of the fireworks hence when you set the exposure levels for the buildings the fireworks will be significantly overexposed.

The best practice is to photograph the cityscape panoramic pass first, then adjust the camera settings and be ready to capture the fireworks.

The fireworks show lasts only 10-12 minutes and requires your full attention. Once the show stops, there will be no other one like that for at least 12 month, so shoot as many images as you can possibly get in that short period of time. This will give you a flexibility of choosing only the best ones to blend into the final panoramic photo. We usually get around 150-250 shots in 12 minutes of the fireworks show.

Notice how dark the cityscape and buildings of the city look on these images above? That is because the Fireworks are much brighter and require different level of exposure as mentioned before. Don’t wait to do the cityscape pass after the fireworks conclude. There will be so much smoke in the air and the visibility will be very poor for quite some time.

Sydney Fireworks – Putting it all together

To combine all images together into just one panoramic gigapixel cityscape you will need some special software. There’s a panorama blending feature in Photoshop. While easy and simple it produces an Okay result in most cases. But in order to speed up the workflow and get a remarkable image our clients expect, we use a specifically designed for the panorama stitching tasks software called PTGui. It produces a stunning result almost every time. To get a perfect image some Photoshop tweaks and adjustments still will be required.

Conclusion

Combining a task of shooting gigapixel panoramic image with a task of shooting fireworks seems almost impossible at first. However, if you follow the above tips you will definitely be able to photograph one for yourself.

And one more tip. Arrive early. Sydney Fireworks happen two times on New Year’s Eve. The first show is at 9pm – so called Children Fireworks. It’s not as great as the performance at midnight but gives you an opportunity to practice. Set the exposure levels correctly and be ready for the Big Show.

If you are looking for a piece of art to decorate a wall in your office or home we have some great images of Sydney Fireworks available as prints, so please get in touch.