BOOM!

Last night was my first attempt at shooting fireworks.  Nothing too fancy, just some locally here in our neighborhood.  It was quite a challenge to guess what direction and when they would be set off.  But I did manage a few interesting shots.  I also learned some very neat information for taking pictures of fireworks.

1) Lower your ISO.  You really want to be down in the 100 range if at all possible.

2) Exposure seemed to be best for me between 2.5 - 3.2 seconds.  Basically just long enough to see the flare trail as it was being sent up.  Press the button and let the exposure capture it.  This differed drastically from everything I had previously been told.

3) f-Stop.  I started at a f8 and had to keep lowering it until eventually I was at a running at a f5.

4) IS and AF.  Turn them both off.  While obvious to turn off Auto Focus, it's not so obvious to turn off Image Stabilization.

Anyways,  here are the results after a little time in Lightroom 4.

Canon 6D 70-200 f4 IS USM

93mm,  f6.3,  8 sec,  ISO 100

Canon 6D 70-200 f4 IS USM

127mm,  f5.6,  2.5 sec,  ISO 100

Canon 6D 70-200 f4 IS USM

111mm,  f5,  2 sec,  ISO 100

So those were the highlights.  Hopefully I'll get more at some point.  We're considering some options to allow more chances at fireworks.

We'll see how it goes.  (: