Gadgetory

taking photos of holiday fireworks isn't as difficult as you might think whether you've got a smartphone or a DSLR I'm going to show you a couple of top tips to make sure your firework photos are spectacular the key of all firework photography is stabilization so if you have a smartphone you might want to invest in something like this it's a gorilla pod grip tight you place your smartphone in the cradle and it's stable of course if you have a DSLR a standard tripod is all you'll need first up shooting on a smartphone you can use your default smartphone camera app if you want to use this make sure you turn off your flash and HDR mode it might sound obvious but make sure you find out where the fireworks are gonna be set off from and get into position early because you want to beat the crowds and get the best vantage point you'll definitely want to take a couple of test shots using a long exposure first up get an idea of what the exposure will be like optimum for the light conditions that surround you and make sure you use that for the fireworks when they start to go off now onto dslr's you'll want to use manual mode and set everything else to your liking use a mid-range aperture something between f/8 and f/11 keep your ISO low around 100 an experiment with different shutter speeds during the fireworks with different effects a good starting point is around three seconds but you can definitely make it longer or shorter depending on this sort of effects that you want to gather and of course depending on the ambient light you'll also want to use self timer on your DSLR so you don't introduce any camera shake but if you have a remote shutter release this also works really well don't feel left out if you have a compact camera though because there are plenty of tips on how to use a compact for great firework photos over at CNET I'm Alexis Avedis and remember have fun with your photography