I’ve never been very successful photographing fireworks. Over exposed, under exposed, blurry, whatever the reason, all my firework photos ended up on the digital cutting-room floor. This summer’s 4th of July fireworks in Pentwater Michigan offered a chance at redemption. With a tripod and a remote trigger, I managed to create a couple keepers mixed in with a few of outtakes.

Pentwater is a small Lake Michigan community and their 4th of July fireworks show is equally as small. At any one time there were no more than two or three mortars bursting in the sky except for the finale. A longer exposure was needed to capture the lower light and also had the benefit of picking up the quickly diminishing sunset. Pentwater is far enough north that a completely pitch black sky would have meant a fireworks show not starting until well after 11:00pm.

Starting with a 5 second exposure, I worked my way up to a more optimal 30 seconds. With a Nikon D70s, a 30 second exposure took sixty to ninety seconds for in-camera processing of the RAW image file, so there wasn’t much time to analyze and adjust. The entire fireworks show was only twenty minutes long.

The only thing I wish I would have tried was zooming all the way out and capturing a broader portrait image.

Click on any image for a larger view and go to Flickr the entire series.