Fireworks Videography Tips
Diwali is one of the best time for videographers to capture the brightest man-made bursting stars in the sky. It's the moment to capture the night of colorful light. This post is all about how you can capture the fireworks in a manner that it dissolves into the viewers' mind.
First point is Location - you need to grab a good location from where you can videograph the whole events interestingly. If possible scan out the location in advance so that you get a good plan ahead before shooting. You can actually check out the position where the crowd will gather, the well structured buildings, colorful painted walls near by, etc.. these will work as a ready-made set for you.
If you're in a urban place, then try to grab some skylines for a wonderful overview of the bursting lights in the open sky. And if you're in a place where you can get a good natural scenes then it's really great- try to include maximum of nature taste like mountain, trees, leaves, etc to add up some feel in it.
Stable your frame - This point is quite important in videographing the fireworks. Always keep your frame stabilized to a position & never chase the fastest movement of the lights. You're not there to capture every movents of it, you're actually there to capture the best part. So, make your lens fixed to one interesting angle & let the fireworks move around - just don't care if goes out of your frame.
You can put your camera in smooth & stabilized motion with a monopod or tripod. Camera Stability is important beacuse the viewers don't like to watch shaky videos as it creates a huge distraction & may get their eyes tired.
High Frame Rate - Try to capture some of the movements in high frame rate like 60, 120 or higher. The higher the frame rate the slower movement of the quick moving fireworks, which makes the situation quite defining.
Get Some Reactions - In such a colorful night, people will surely have some interesting reaction, so try to capture them too. Let your viewers' know that there were people experiencing the beauty of the sky & how's their reaction that time..
Capture their smiles, mouth agapes, giggling, dance and anything from different angles to make the video lively & fun viewing.
Aperture - Play with the focus and highlight some important objects making the background blur. Focus on something like a person weaving his/her hand in the air and in background is the sky with blurry bursting lights.
ISO - Keep the ISO low as possible while shooting the fireworks to avoid the noisy grains. As the light available will be huge so you don't need the high light sensitivity at that time.
Get some Lenses - if your camera supports interchangible lens then it's recommended to get some closer shots of the action & even you can use the wide angle lens to capture the crowd very well.
Make Timelapse - The breathe taking fireworks show lasts for hours, so you don't have to create hours of video. You can do Timelapse to make the video faster & interesting.
And Ofcourse Safety, while taking the fireworks video you should maintain a distance because it can be quite dangerous. So, be careful while taking the closer shots.
I hope, you enjoyed this article filled with the information of Firework Videography. If you've any question or points to include, then kindly add it in the below comment.
