How to photograph fireworks (phone or camera)

We have watched thousands of people photograph our shows, and most go home with blurry orange smudges. The fixes are simple, and none of them need expensive gear. Here is how to get photos worth printing, whether you brought a phone or a camera.

01The one mistake to avoid

Turn your flash off. A flash cannot light the sky — it only lights the heads in front of you and tells your camera to expose for them, killing the fireworks behind. Everything else in this guide matters less than this.

02With a phone

• Hold still or lean on something — a railing, a post, a friend's shoulder. Most "bad fireworks photos" are just camera shake.
• Tap the fireworks on screen to lock focus and exposure, then drag the exposure slider down a touch so the bursts do not blow out to white.
• Use burst mode or Live Photo during big moments, then pick the best frame later.
• Shoot the first half of the show. Smoke builds as a display goes on, and the early bursts fire into the cleanest, darkest sky.
• Try a wide shot that includes the crowd, the venue, or the water. Phones are at their best telling the whole scene, not zooming into one shell.

03With a camera

Fireworks are slow, bright subjects — ideal for manual settings:

1. Put the camera on a tripod, or failing that, a wall, ledge, or bag.
2. ISO 100, aperture around f/8 to f/11.
3. Shutter 2 to 6 seconds — long enough to draw full trails of light.
4. Focus manually to infinity, or autofocus on the first burst and then switch autofocus off.
5. Fire the shutter with a 2-second timer or remote so pressing the button does not shake the frame.

Open the shutter just as a shell goes up and you will capture the whole flower: the rise, the burst, and the falling trails in one frame.

04Compose before the show starts

Arrive a few minutes early and build your frame: where will the bursts be, and what will sit beneath them? A silhouette of the crowd, a church facade, palm trees, the reflection on the water — a foreground turns a picture of an explosion into a picture of a night.

05One request from the crew

Stay behind the safety line, however good the angle looks past it. The crew will always help a photographer find a great legal vantage point if you ask before the show — we love seeing good photos of our work, and we share the best ones our clients send us.