P#6: Spectacular Fireworks Over Nashville, Tennessee

Using the right exposure to photograph fireworks

Jim Zuckerman: Okay, well, photos 10173 and MS5458, and also 10183, those three pictures are just straight taken during the Nashville show. If anybody lives near Nashville, I really recommend it because it's spectacular -- very, very impressive.

The MS5458 was taken during the finale. You can see that the streaks of light could be longer. I used the 1.6 second exposure. Had I used, let's say, a 2 second or a 3 second exposure, those streaks would have been longer but see how they all combined together?

(click images for a larger version)

(10173)

(ms5458)

(10183)

My feeling is that if they get too long and there are too many bursts all in one picture it's going to become sort of a mess. That's why, at least according to my own sense of aesthetics, that 1.6 second shutter speed worked out really well. But again, if you want a little longer burst, then try 2 seconds. There's nothing wrong with that.

The 10183, that was a really cool thing where -- they have these flatbed trucks and all these huge barrel kind of canister things full of fireworks. A whole bunch of them went off at once. It just lit up the entire city.

To summarize

For the best fireworks photographs, try a shutter speed between 1.6 seconds and 2 seconds. Balance how long you want the streaks with clarity, so the fireworks don't all get jumbled together.