Whether you are photographing on July 4, on the New Year’s Eve or for another celebration, fireworks are always amazing opportunities for photo. Bright light and dynamic colors are incredibly contradictory with dark night heavens, making your pictures look beautifully dramatic with little effort by you.
When you were photographing at night, you needed a large DSLR, today’s best camera phones, including iPhone 16 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro and Galaxy S25 ultra, are capable of taking amazing photos after dark. Even the budget options such as Pixel 9A or nothing phone 3A can capture good -looking images at night.
So whether you are pointing to the sky with a camera without your phone or a mirror, my top points as a professional photographer here are how to take pictures of fireworks that believe to wow your friends.
Try the Night Mode
At night, with the display of most fireworks, you will need to use your phone’s night mode to capture a bright icon. Although some phones, such as the iPhone 16 Pro, have night methods that automatically kick when they find out that it is dark, other phones can have a dedicated format to take photos at night. Before you get to your show, make sure you will activate Night Mode on your phone.
Taken with Xumi 14 Ultra, this fireworks are not surprising at the Taylor Swift’s Ice Tour, but this shot shows the importance of possessing more structural elements in your scene rather than some fireworks in your scene.
Lock the exposure
Night mode is probably going to be the easiest way to get good looking results with little effort, but it’s not foolproof. The main problem is that it will try to brighten the whole scene, and it doesn’t look great – these dark skies need to be dark to stand for fireworks.
If you look a little less at night mood shots, try to suppress and catch an area of icon to lock the exhibition, and then use the slider to dark this photo until you think it looks good. After taking such an exhibition, it will stop resetting it in a pre -determined. If your phone has a pro mode, you can potentially set the exposure to a dark point.
Make creative with manual control
Most phones should be able to snatch an excellent -looking icon with a little extra effort by your side, but sometimes it pays to be a bit creative with your camera settings. One of my favorite tricks for fireworks photos is that a long exhibition – maybe the second tall – that turns crisp fireworks into light lines in the sky. This is a very different form, but I really enjoy the summary impression.
By using a second exhibition, I was able to blur the fireworks movement to produce this abstract result.
Some cameras have pro mode that give you manual control over shutter speed, but there are different camera apps for both iOS and Android that will provide you with this function. My suggestion? Play around with your settings and see what your pictures do when you press the shutter button – you will be surprised at how much impact you like.
Keep stable hands
If you want a sharp image, it is very important to keep your phone stable, even when you use night mode. Just holding it firmly can make all the difference. Told your phone with two hands and give you a strong and stable stance. Keep your stories collide. Each time try to take many photos as it will increase the difficulties that at least one of them will be good and faster.
Although it is not always so easy, if you can put your phone or camera on a tripod, you will appreciate this extra effort to prevent this extra gear.
Think about the structure
While the image of a fireworks in the sky can look quite cool, you can make your image even more impressive by thinking about the recipe inside the shot. Try to add details of the preview, such as displaying other people in a display or interesting buildings or other food stands. By adding ground properties, it provides the overhead of the fireworks, which makes them look even greater and greater through comparison.
I loved this embrace at the bottom of my frame. This story not only tells the fireworks story, but also enjoys these people.
Shoot in Ra
Although your phone can occupy an excellent visible shot with just the tap of the button, I often find that some post processing in apps like Google’s Snapd or Adobe Light Room makes all differences. On my iPhone 16 Pro, I will shoot at Prura, which later gives me deep control over the colors and vice versa in my image.
I will often adjust the white balance according to the scene, increase the contrary, and maybe even introduce some explanation in the image that can really help pop up these bright details in the sky. There is no right or wrong way to edit an image, so my best suggestion is to spend some time playing with your editing app slider and see what you can take.
