Photographing fireworks.

There are 364 days left to prepare for bonfire night, or if you're lucky there may be one you could get to tonight, but technically it would be a day late. Taking photos of fireworks is massive fun, because it's pretty easy to get good results. But, it's a number game. Expect a 5% yield of photos you'd likely consider good enough to keep and you'll be happy. Many modern camera's have a fireworks mode. If yours does, I'd suggest you use it but be aware of what your camera is doing, perhaps tweak a manual or custom mode to give you some flexibility. Also, not all 'fireworks' modes are the same, my daughters camera favours a 4 second exposure time, where as my fuji set shutter speed to 2 seconds. The ISO and the F stop can vary in 'fireworks' mode, depending on the scene, literally in microseconds depending on what it sees. So it's worth bearing that in mind. Unless you can make a decision, and adjust your camera settings like the bionic man, in the same time it takes for a firework to fill the sky, perhaps there's no shame in letting a computer make those decisions for you. Don't let manual snobbery stop you getting a great shot. However, if you want to set up your camera and have an experiment you may be surprised to learn you can get away with a very low ISO, resulting in crisp sharp picture. 100-200 is fine as the bright light from the firework will cut through and burn a lovely high contrast image onto your sensor. F stop of 10 or below should suffice, but pay particular attention to your focus. Auto focus could struggle in low light. So maybe switching to manual would be wise, with a wider F stop? But it's your call. Nevertheless it's a great time to get your camera out and learn more about how it copes with fireworks.

Start with
ISO 200
f stop 8
Shutter 2"

Try handheld you may get some wobble, depending on your ability to hold a camera still, but the effects work as often as they fail. Tripod use is limited unless you're including the foreground on a wide shot, as firework tend to fill different parts of the sky, and zooming with a good optical telephoto is generally the way you'll want to capture an explosion.