Shooting Fireworks & Lasers in night sky without Tripod

[Cool G5]

I own a Canon SX 100 IS digital camera. It's a good camera but suffers from noise problem once the ISO is cranked above 400. A bit is seen even above 200.

Now I need to shoot some laser shows & fireworks at night in the coming day or two. I do not have a tripod. What do you suggest to get good snaps under the above scenario. Also bear in mind most of my shots will be zoomed to the max i.e. 10x optical zoom.

At which ISO should I shoot? Any other things which I need to know to get good pictures without tripod?

 

[KmH]

It won't matter to much what ISO you use because unless you figure out some way to really steady the camera, like with a good tripod, all the pictures will be blurry.

Zooming makes camera shake worse. Long exposures make camera shake worse.

So, you need to rig up some kind of a substitute for a tripod. Use the ISO 200 and rest the camera on something stable like the top of a wall or fence. You know, Wal-Mart usually has cheap tripods (around $30). One of those would be better than nothing.

You might get a couple decent shots without, but don't get your hopes up.

 

[nb62]

I've only tried to photograph fireworks once before, without a great deal of success but I can recommend a website that might help.

How to Photograph Fireworks Displays

 

[ann]

see if you can find a bean bag , set the camera on that to help steady the shot.

or a bag of peas in a zip lock bag might work.

 

[Jeff Colburn]

Depending what kind of effect you want, you may be able to hand hold for laser, just shoot at the slowest shutter speeds you without shake. I've photographed lasers just using normal exposure (the show was indoors). But anything needing long exposures or the Bulb setting will require a tripod or bean bag.

You really can't hand hold for fireworks, because the exposure will be too long.

Have Fun,
Jeff

 

[kundalini]

see if you can find a bean bag , set the camera on that to help steady the shot.

or a bag of peas in a zip lock bag might work.

:thumbup:

but not frozen peas........ condensation. :mrgreen:

 

[tsaraleksi]

Set your ISO at 100, your shutter speed at 1 second (change this as you see fit to change the amount of fireworks in your image) and your aperture to f/8. So long as you don't get ANY ground elements in the photos (ie, only fireworks) you'll be able to get some useable images handheld.

The reason this works is that a singular point of light will register on the sensor and can't blur because it's simply not there long enough in one place to do so.

 

[Cool G5]

Thanks for the tips guys. Eventually I got down on my knees & took shots using self-timer under manual mode.

Here is one of the shot : BWSL on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I reached the place a bit late & hence could not snap fireworks. However I did record them from a distance in a video.

 

[B Kennedy]

Very interesting thread. What I love about fireworks is that it is not like shooting lightning where you need a long couple second exposure. So for that, I tend to disagree with the above comments. Check out the attached picture which has both a non-moving (castle) lol structure with lights on it. I shot that with my 30d at 1/15 of a second, f5, iso 1600. Yea it has some noise, but not noticeable on the 8x10 that I printed it. And yes, it was handheld. You can actually see that I was standing in a mob of people and there was absolutely no room where I could rest up against a garbage can, or put my camera on something with a remote release. So I stood still, made sure to breathe out before I took the pic, and shot away, and they all came out pretty good. Of course not as good had I had a tripod, but they were decent IMO.

 

[ann]

i am old , frozen never crossed my mind

 

[Cool G5]

Here is another pic, I shot yesterday. this time I found a place to rest my camera.



Critique & Comments are welcome.

Camera Used : Canon SX 100 IS
Exposure Time : 15 Secs
Aperture : F 8.0
ISO : 80
White Balance : Tungsten

 

[1.john.1]

Very interesting thread.

nice pic by the way.

 

[wiredhernandez]

I was tooling around last year with the same so had some for quick posting. Might give you an idea of how you may toggle for your own or not .. Happy 4th all.

ISO: 800 Exposure: 1/40 sec Aperture: 1.8

ISO: 800 Exposure: 1/40 sec Aperture: 1.8

ISO: 800 Exposure: 1/40 sec Aperture: 4.0

ISO: 200 Exposure: 1/40 sec Aperture: 2.8

 

[Cool G5]

^Which camera did you use? I guess some DSLR?
I cannot increase the ISO to 800 on my Canon SX 100 IS since it produces a lot of noise due to small sensor.