Hi all,

I want to shoot my local village firework display in a couple of days. Trouble is, I've never shot fireworks before, and I'm not sure what the right approach is.

Anyone have any guidelines?

Regards,

Julian

Hi Julian:

This past July I had the same questions you do. Here's some things I found to be of help.

You don't want to be too close, or you won't catch everything. Don't get too far away, either, although you can zoom in.

Set up on a tripod. If you want the sound of the explosions, you'll likely want to be away from people talking, etc. That may not be possible, however.

Go manual on everything, from focusing to shutter speed to iris aperture. Start with a fairly wide shot and a wide open iris. As the show opens, you can frame your shot (and focus as well) and then start to adjust the aperture and shutter speed.

You can see some fireworks that I taped (composited into an opening sequence for a patriotic concert that I taped and edited):

Let Freedom Sing intro (http://homepage.mac.com/iblog/let_freedom_sing_intro.mov)

Good Luck!

Hi,

well, the proof is in the pudding, and your fireworks certainly look bright and crisp.

How do you expose for this? I would guess maximum aperture because, even when exploding, it's still pretty dark.

I will be using a PDX10, but that only allows manual aperture OR manual shutter speed, but not both. Oh, and it has doubtful low light capability, so this may not work out too well...

Julian

Come to think about it , this will probably become more PDX10 related - can a wrangler transfer this to the PDX10 forum?

Use a shutter speed of 1/60. Even though a slower shutter will work better in lower light, the fast moving footage will have gaps in it. Manual everything, tripod, and not too far or close, as the other members suggest.

A few more observations:

As the fireworks themselves ARE the source of light when they burst in the sky, you'll probably want to close your iris a little more than you'd thought if you want to capture their true colors.
If you adjust the aperture on the night scenery before the fist bomb goes off, all your fireworks will come out as washed out white. Anyway, avoid turning the gain on.

Keep your framing wide. Don't try to follow a bomb going up with your zoom: you'd miss its blooming. Try to anticipate the size of the burst and frame safe. Keep steady on a tripod. No need for the image stabiliser.

Any shutter speed slower than 1/50 (1/60 NTSC) will deinterlace the picture and discard half of the vertical resolution. Any speed higher than 1/50 (1/60 NTSC) will reduce exposure and force you to push the gain up, inducing grain.

If you can shoot from across a river or a lake, you'll get beautiful reflexions of colors on the water.

<<<-- Originally posted by Julian Luttrell : Hi,

well, the proof is in the pudding, and your fireworks certainly look bright and crisp.

How do you expose for this? I would guess maximum aperture because, even when exploding, it's still pretty dark.

-->>>

Thanks. I don't remember what my exposure settings ended up at. What you saw was part of the finale, so I had adjusted everything the way I wanted it by the time these were shot.

I should point out that on a TV set the fireworks are not as crisp as I would have liked. It can be hard to get them in as sharp focus as you'd like when using a view finder or LCD on a dark night.

Mine were shot with a GL2, totally manual. But I know of someone else who used a GL2 in auto mode and was quite happy with his results.

Give it your best shot and let us know how it goes!

Also, remove all the filters off your lens, otherwise you'll wonder where all the ghosts in your picture came from.
I shot fireworks before, and with the lens fully wide, I had some issues with it.

Ok, I'm shooting a fireworks show tonight sync-ed to Christmas music. So, I will not be able to edit it much and stay with the music. I have to get it right the first time.

In my mind, I should use my wide angle converter(GL2).

It seems to me that I should set the focus to infinity and leave it there. Am I on the right track? I just don't see any way to adjust focus during a fireworks show.

The good folks so far have said to stay with 1/60f and not be so concerned with the dark night. Also should I use a low gain, like 2?

In my attempt, I found the only thing to do was to use a PAL/NTSC monitor. Refer to it continually and make corrections to the camera based on what you see there.

Julian

Hi

As usual I will film the fireworks on december 31.
Last year was the first time I used my XM2 for filming the fireworks. I then used the auto mode.

I hope users of the GL2/XM2 will share their epinion in this topic about the best way of filming fireworks.

Gabriel

Auto comes with Auto Focus too. This aint good. Think about it? Going from a black sky to a blazing array of bright colours and light will drive the auto focus bananas. Auto Exposure will have to do.

Yes go Auto BUT use Manual Focus too. Zoom way in and Focus on a point a little beyond your "estimated" plane of filming. Get the Focus real sharp. Now Zoom out and take in the whole panorama. This worked for me. Oh yes, I should have either with moving the tripod a little further back OR attempted to use the wide angle Canon Lens.

I've got other tweaks - but I'll give ithers a chance to pick holes in my approach first - yeah?

Grazie

I would also "fix" the shutter at 1/50th. Less than that, the cam will miss fast moving detail, faster than that, your lux requirements will increase; and since this is night-time shooting, the cam is already tasked.

I like that Frank!

I shot some fireworks full manual with my XL1S (forgot the settings).
Basically because it will otherwise overcompensate (because
it goes from complete dark to very light etc.).

I'm looking for some advice from anyone familiar with filming fireworks on mini DV...shutter speed,f stop etc.

That largely depends on whether you are shooting in daylight
or at night. At night I wouldn't go with auto functions for sure
due to the rapid changing light levels. I've shot fireworks at
night for fun, but don't remember what settings I used.

Manual Focus. Find something, even in the gloom, which is at the furthest point you think that you would need. Foocus on that and you should be good to go. Manual exposure? Tricky . . . I'v done manula focus and let it be . . . I've got some footage if I knew where to stick it . . you could see it . .maybe some stills from the piece? You interested?

Grazie

"Manual Focus. Find something, even in the gloom, which is at the furthest point you think that you would need. Foocus on that and you should be good to go. Manual exposure? Tricky . . . I'v done manula focus and let it be . . . I've got some footage if I knew where to stick it . . you could see it . .maybe some stills from the piece? You interested?"

Sure I'd love to see what you've done, but I'm a newbie to this and don't really know how. Maybe you could email me

I wonder if the digital gain feature where the shutter is slowed down to 1/16 or 1/18 etc of a second might produce a real nice look.

However you should probably use a tripod.

If I was shooting still, I'd probably go for a time exposure and stop down the lens to f16 or so to avoid overexposure, but I'm not sure how to transfer that to video. I guess I don't understand shutter speeds longer than 1/60 sec with video since you get 60 fields per second interlaced. I'm also concerned that I'll overexpose and not get any colors

Hopefully the color viewfinder will prove helpful.
Since the fireworks trails elongate, part of the streak may washout but the moving part might retain it's color.

You probably don't want to be wide-open with your f-stop but I'm not sure where to tell you to put it. Hopefully the viewfinder will help.

For fireworks at night, use manual focus and manual aperture.
If you let the camcorder on auto-iris, it'll try to make daylight out of night and push the gain up to noisy-grain land!

To capture the real colors of the fireworks, you should even close the iris one more stop. If not, each burst of light will be washed out white in the dark sky.

On most camcorders, any shutter speeds slower than 1/60 (NTSC) will force the cam to deinterlace: it will totally discard the even field and duplicate the odd field on the next line in order to get longer exposure lapse than 1/60. So you'll lose half the vertical resolution, and each light dot will be stretched over 2 hor. lines of the image. Any speed slower than 1/30 will also give you choppy strobe movements. Stay at 1/60 shutter speed, even if colors seem richer in slow-shutter mode.

As for audio, Auto-level will cause the volume to pump up and down on each loud explosion. If you have manual audio level, use it.

I'm a big fan of frame resolution rather than field resolution. Usually when I see the digital gain used the cinematographer I couldn't tell it was field rather than frame because of the blurriness of the handheld digital gain shot.

I don't think I've ever seen digital gain without it being hand held! If digital gain is only field resolution then just for kicks I would see what it looks like but in all likelihood you are better off not using the digital gain mode.

Does anybody knoiw if you lose manual exposure control when in the digital gain mode?

Last year I taped the fireworks display with my ancient analog Sony set on automatic focus. Each firework came out blurry and slowy came into focus.

Recently bought a new GL-2 which I am crazy about. Would like to tape the fire works display this year.
I'm a rank newbie in this area. I will have the camera sitting on a tripod using the lance control that came with the tripod for the zoom.

Question: What settings should I have pre-set on the camera ?
Manual focus/vs autofocus ? lens setting, etc. Your feedback will be appreciated. Thanks !! :-)

Does anyone have a recipie of settings on the VX2100 for tapping fireworks at night? Even if someone has a starting point I could use it to test the results.

Good question for this weekend (in the U.S.). Here's a starter list. Tripod mount. Shooting fireworks displays is strictly a locked-down affair. Full manual mode. That is, manual exposure and manual focus. Focus on infinity. That is, focus on the furthest point you can. Set your shutter for 1/60. You can also try 1/30, although you should not go lower than that unless you want a stuttery effect. Your aperture is the wild card. Depending on your shutter speed, above, I'd set this somewhere between f4.0 and f6.2.You'll have to experiment a bit with the first few bursts. It will depend largely on your position with respect to the display as well as on your shutter speed. But the key here is to use all-manual control and to fiddle only with the aperture until you reach your sweet spot. Then just let the camera run by itself.

One tip: It's often more interesting to shoot the faces of people watching the display. People of all ages momentarily have child-like expressions watching fireworks. It's great b-roll to show close-ups of people watching a display with the reflection of shell bursts coming off their faces. So if you're planning to edit together a piece consider adding some of this to break up the monotony.

Good luck!

Hi Ken,
Thanks a lot !! That was the info I needed. The idea of catching the faces of some of the people watching the fireworks sounds like pure genius !! WOW ! Never thought of that.

Will set my ancient old analog Sony for the B roll for those shots !! That way, I can concentrate on their OOH's and Ahhh's with that camera while shooting the fireworks with my shiney new GL-2 :-)

I use the Pinnacle Studio nine for the edits. Plan on moving up to the liquid edition later on, not unless I can find something better along that line. Bob :-)

Probably the best way is to use the LCD and adjust as you go. You should be able to adjust aperature within 2 shots or so. Speed I'm not so certain about but I'd go for 1/60th for starters.

Turns out we both are probably going to try it for the first time on Video this weekend, eh?

I cross referenced this question to Camorderinfo.com and found this:
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/t44898.html

There is alot of info in this thread and should be read in it's entirity. I am going to try with what they suggest and use your advice on monitoring it. If you want we can post and compare the results. Please let me how you do.

You might be interested in this GL2 thread (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28377), also. Just more tips.

The VX2k shoots fireworks very well indeed. I use the side screen for convenience, manual focus to stop the camera’s focus wandering in the dark and manual exposure to avoid over-exposure of the fireworks against the dark sky. I use it as an audio recorder too, to collect the noise. I find the AGC/auto limiter to be very useful in such circumstances.

Rockets at a public firework event are a wow because of their power. The sync loss between flash and bang brings home their height and the force of the explosions can be felt on your chest. Recreating this on the TV screen indoors is near impossible so I take it as a golden opportunity to go wild - not only out there in the field, but also indoors on the timeline.

Shoot fireworks wildly out of focus - they have a beauty of their own especially when superimposed over sharp footage. Use manual exposure to retain the different colours. There's no "correct" exposure and experimentation will show that practically anything looks good. Shoot at very slow shutter speeds and spin the camera about the lens axis as you crash zoom out from an explosion. Use a 6 point cross screen and spin the filter on its thread. Use the "ghost" filter in Premiere to add trails, the colour correction to enhance and the slow-motion option to expand the unseen. Set the wrong colour balance. Some cutaways of sky-gazing crowds oohing and ahring are most useful, and you’ll find there’s lots of light to film them by when big rockets explode.

Remember this rule: there are no rules. Shoot now while you have the chance. The politically correct amongst us will first of all insist on silent fireworks, just before they ban the whole lot on safety grounds.

Tom, you have great ideas for how to use the fireworks shots later, but during the actual shoot I'd recommend any first time FW shooters to concentrate on getting aperature, and shutter speeds they like first, before they start shooting out of focus and spinning the camera all around. Those effects can be achieved later with most NLE's, assuming your source material is of good quality. The only reason I bring it up is that shooting fireworks is usually pretty rare (once a year!), and I lot of things can go wrong so get as much universally usable footage as you can.

For example, like most of us I shoot a lot of video for later bluescreen use, and just random stock footage. I don't have any fireworks shots yet, and went to shoot the ones in my town last night. I got there late, they were finishing early and I got maybe a couple of minutes, when I would have liked a lot more... now I gotta try and hunt down more tonight (which shouldn't be too difficult), but it supports the idea of leaving the FX for editing, and just making sure you got the best quality footage at the shoot.

Any takers?

. . . about 4 threads down?

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28377


Grazie ;-)

Thank you all for the excellent ideas and suggestions. With all the settings that people have recommended I have just come back from my first shoot. The results are spectacular! I hope to get a screenshot up soon. Here is what I went with

Sony HG0758 Wide Angle lens
Shutter speed 1/60
Exposure f4
Focus Manual Infinity.

And that's it. I am so surprised how well this camera has captured the events. I got another one tonight so I hope to get more footage. Update soon.

Good results reported by a Sony VX2100 shooter (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&postid=196147).

Here they are, just some quick exports to Windows Media 9 files. Please, all comments, questions and suggestions are welcome.

http://members.cox.net\cydonia\Fireworks\Fireworks_1.wmv

http://members.cox.net\cydonia\Fireworks\Fireworks_2.wmv

http://members.cox.net\cydonia\Fireworks\Fireworks_3.wmv

http://members.cox.net\cydonia\Fireworks\Fireworks_4.wmv

http://members.cox.net\cydonia\Fireworks\Fireworks_5.wmv

Thanks for viewing and THANKS for all the invaluable help.

I got very good results on a big fireworks show last night with my VX2100.
I locked the focus on manual and fine-tuned it with the momentary push-focus button. I found that its auto exposure and normal shutter did quite well and almost instantly and accurately adjusted for the flashes without shutting down the exposure and causing visible fluctuations. The auto-level audio control handled the explosions just right. From past experience, I didn't use an add-on mike, which has caused overloading of sound on other camcorders.

After using the viewfinder for a few minutes, I gave myself a break and opened the viewscreen. It was one of the few times I'd ever use such a thing, but it was a big benefit for comfort and steadiness. It attracted several nearby techno-freaks, who seemed more interested in seeing it on my screen, than in watching the real thing??

The next 4th of July, I'll attach my .5X wide-angle lens. Although I got enough of the action in the picture, the basic lens needed some help in grabbing all the side streamers.

I took the camera next door today and showed the recording to the neighbors who have four kids under age 4 and were too
young to go to the show. I'd left the darned built-in lens-cap shut for the first 5 seconds and was told that it was a nice artistic touch to start out with just the sound and then engaging the video with that window opening from the middle.

Steve McDonald

Hey guys,

Okay I'm working on a job right now filming a fireworks product video for a company. I using the settings that everyone seems to agree on in all the other threds that I've read on here. Everything looks good expect for one kind of firework.

I can't seem to pick up the soft gold effect from palm/willow fireworks where after the burst there is that soft gold trail following it down. I can't seem to pick up that trail!

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to pick these trails up? I'm using a Canon GL2 camera, if that matters any.

Thanks in advance.

The trails are not giving off enough light to be picked up by the CCD. Open the aperature, lower the shutter speed, and shut off image stabilization.

Sounds like a fun job! As long as safety precautions are followed.

So does the client stage special fireworks displays just for the shoot? I imagine that would help so you don't have that standing cloud of smoke to shoot through.

If you have time, give us a brief rundown of "a day in the office."

T.J.

OK I'll jump in.

"The trails are not giving off enough light to be picked up by the CCD. Open the aperature, lower the shutter speed, and shut off image stabilization"

Good advice but I have noticed that when the aperature is opened too far (maybe what you need to see the trails) the colors look way to saturated and take on a white look - at least on one of my cameras. There has to be a happy medium that will allow good color on the bright stuff but will also show the trails.

Time to experiment with what Jesse has suggested. Let us know how it works as you'll be the expert when you're done.

Terry

P.S. I hope you are in manual iris control as the AGC can mess you up a lot in this situation.

I only shot some stuff with my XL1S a couple of years back at
the year change and I had everything on full manual. Looked
pretty good, although it was hard to know in that situation
where the next "explosions" where going to be. All sort of auto
circuits (like auto focus) could prevent you from seeing such an
effect. Perhaps you should tell us in which settings you where
shooting?

I'm a brand new XL2 owner and I curious as to what would be the best way to configure my camera in order to film my family's July 4th fireworks. The camera will be pearched about 80 feet away on a rooftop. What's the best way to capture this sort of thing at night?

There is no one answer to this question, remember your exposure is determined by the distance from the light source. So how far away from the source will determine your exposure.
I have found slower shutter speeds give better saturated colors so I would start at 1/24 - 1/30 @ F:11 and see where you are at. You may even need to add an ND filter to get those nice bright colors.

Bill

I shot our fireworks last year with my XL2. I used the 16X manual with a .7 wide angle adapter.

Set the camera in full manual mode. You don't need to add gain, the fireworks will be plenty bright.

Set focus to manual and on infinity. Stay full wide during the display.

I don't recommend F11 as Bill does because that's going to bring in some undesirable characteristics of the lens. I know Bill is recommending this to get you deeper DOF which you will need cause the fireworks aren't all going to be at the same distance from you. But F11 is outside the sweet spot of the lens and if you do use a wide angle adapter, your DOF should be plenty deep at full wide.

My recommendation is to stay at around f4 or f5.6 and set knee to low and blacks to stretch in the presets menu.

If you don't have a wide angle adapter, 80 feet away is going to be too close for a nice wide view of the show. Try to get further away if possible.

Also, try to stay upwind of the show so that falling debris doesn't land on the camera.

Have fun and be safe!

-gb-

If possible, have someone send up a test fire so you can lock the camera on the correct settings before the main show starts.

Greg,

Good point I'll use some ND and open up abit and see what happens this year.
The ones I shoot are shot from three barges and they are 200 to 300 yards apart. I'll try focusing between the first and second barge and see what happens.

Bill

I am looking for some advice from the VX/PD veterans. I purchased a VX-2100 about 6 months ago and I am trying to learn how to get the most out of it. It has produced some stunning footage in both manual and auto modes until I tried to capture some of the holiday fireworks shows, over the weekend. The show was about 14 minutes long and I started with everything in auto, just to see what would happen, for the first couple of minutes. Through the rest of the show, I played with some of the program modes and full manual settings. I never really got the sharp color rich images that I was looking for. I'm not sure how to accurately manual focus the short burst of fireworks. Best focus seemed to be at, or near infinity. I know every situation is different, but what would be a "typical" setup for this type shot? (Aperature, Shutter, White Balanace) I did notice that when in auto, there was lots of gain. I was able to go the other direction and close down the aperature and that did help some.
Thanks

Fireworks look best shot with a very static camer - of that I'm positive. Fireworks are also very bright, so you'll probably need zero gain and something like f/4. Experiment. Infinity focus is good, as is daylight white balance. AGC for the audio is probably best to avoid overoad on the biggest bangs.

I always do a two camera shoot. Both cameras run continuously for sync on the timeline, and the roving cam captures the skyward turned faces oohing and ahring at the night sky. Four pictures in the frame on the edit (with the faces at the bottom) works really well.

tom.

A lot of people say they use the AGC for audio to avoid overloading the sound. I find that the sound runs very hot. Is this normal? When adjusting levels manually, what mark do you aim for on the display?

Ezra