If you are like me, you will have your cell phone out for the fireworks tonight.
I don’t know what it is about fireworks, but I always want to take photos of them. I’ve tried all kinds of tricks and tips and on occasion I have gotten lucky. But more often I have had a camera roll full of blurry fuzzy not so hot pictures.
Tonight will be better. Tonight I will get great fireworks photos with my cellphone.
Verizon Wireless shared this handy list of tips for with me, and I am sharing it with you now…
Tips for getting the perfect fireworks photo on your phone
- Get there early to grab the best spot. Before the light show begins, it’s best to scout out the location for the optimal vantage point. You should also think about the foreground and background elements of the location and how you might want to incorporate them and take a few test shots when things start to get dark. Once the fireworks start, you’ll be ready to go!
- Use a selfie stick. A Bluetooth controlled selfie stick makes it easy to remotely activate your phone shutter at the best height and speed for the show. A tripod is also a great tool to help keep your phone level during long exposures in low light conditions where every shake and tremor can ruin the shot.
- Slow down your shutter speed. Photographing fireworks requires long exposures. If your phone has a manual shooting mode, turn down the ISO setting to around 100 and adjust the shutter time anywhere from 1 second up to 30 seconds. Don’t want to mess around with manual mode? Check out the Camera FV-5 app.
Using the pre-set “Modes” on your phone for capturing fireworkd:
- Fireworks Mode: If your Android camera supports Fireworks or Night mode, it’s always good and advisable to use it to improve the photo quality. Keeping Fireworks/Night mode ON makes the job much easier.
- Landscape Mode: A phone’s camera automatically tries to find an object on which to focus but when looking at a black sky, things can get tricky and the camera doesn’t know where to focus. In “landscape” mode, you’ll be pre-setting the focus to infinity and narrowing the lens opening, which keeps both near and far objects in focus.
Burst Mode: Most Android phones come equipped with this handy feature. Using Burst mode captures a series of photos of the fireworks explosion rapidly, which allows you to select the best photo out of multiple photos captured simultaneously.
Additional tips and tricks for taking photos of fireworks with your phone:
- Don’t zoom in. ” Using zoom on your phone while capturing photos crops and enlarges the photo, which results in a lack of sharpness. It makes the photo grainier or pixelated with low resolution.
- Turn off the light. To get the best shot, you should also turn off your flash and HDR. By turning your flash off, the camera will have only the available light to capture a picture, thus resulting in better quality.
That’s it! Let me know if these tips work for you. I’m sure I will be using some of these at Disneyland too.
And if you are looking for a deal on a phone with a great camera – check out my review of the Google Pixel 2 from Verizon.
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