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My friends at the Disney Photography Blog have released an eBook called Fireworks Photography. The 55-page eBook is something I wished I had when I started to photograph fireworks.  It would have saved me much time and money as it took three trips to Walt Disney World before I figured out how to get good photographs of Illuminations in Epcot and Wishes in the Magic Kingdom.

A new eBook shows you how to photograph firework shows like Illuminations in Epcot.

The first two chapters give you all you need to know about photographing fireworks shows anywhere in the world but with particular emphasis on Disney themeparks.  They tell you what you need in equipment (yes, folks, you do NEED a tripod) if you are using a digital SLR camera OR a Point & Shoot camera.  The principles are the same in both cases.  Keep the camera steady for a long period of time and set the correct exposure settings and/or shooting modes to use so as not to get a white blob of light in your photos. Hey, we’ve all done it. 🙂

The third chapter is about composition.  Depending on where the fireworks show is being held, interesting compositions can sometimes be a real challenge and the eBook gives good advice on how to do it.  If you are photographing in a Disney themepark, it is easy to find elements to include like a castle or other park landmarks (see Illuminations photo above).

A page from the Composition Chapter of the Fireworks Photography eBook.

Next the eBook goes into more advanced techniques for photographing fireworks. They go in depth as to what are Neutral Density (ND) filters.  The different types and what they mean.  How using an ND filter affects fireworks photos and the pros and cons of using them.  I learned that you don’t have to set your aperture to f/16 or f/22 with an ND filter as it makes the streaks very thin.  Something I found in my ND filter firework photographs.  I hope to improve the next time I am photographing fireworks with ND filters at Walt Disney World.  They also talk about a technique called the Country Shutter which is something I used to do back in film days and still works marvelously with digital cameras.

The last chapter goes into how to process firework shots to get the results you see in Disney brochures. They go step by step using instructions which can be used for many popular photo editing software programs like Adobe PhotoShop Elements, PhotoShop, LightRoom, Apple Aperture 3 and many others.  You will see how to maintain detail in the fireworks while keeping all the bright colors you remember seeing in the shows. In other words, you will “Wow” your friends and family both at home and online.

I know what you are thinking.  Between this blog and many other websites, you could find all this information for free instead of purchasing Fireworks Photography at its current introductory price of $14US. Ebooks are good for a couple of reasons. One, you can put them on your smartphones, tablets, netbooks and laptops and have access to all their information without needing an Internet connection.  Two, the topic of the eBook (in this case, fireworks photography) is laid out in one place with examples, details, suggestions and ideas by the authors who are experts.  They have done all the searching, researching and compiling for you as well as passing on their knowledge and experience.  In many cases, it is far easier and less time consuming for me than doing all the work myself.  Well worth the money in my opinion.