[mlines]

I have tried a couple of times to capture fireworks with mixed results.

By their nature, displays tend to be quite short and fiddling around with the camera takes up to much time

What settings would be a good starting point?

[taktoon]

Tripod. Remote shutter release. Manual mode. Iso 100, time 2-6 seconds, aperture around 8. Manual focused in live view before start of the show. Last but not least good spot! Be ready to manipulate the time.
Semana Grande Donostia San Sebastian 2018-08-17 | Flickr my last shots with K-70.
Have a lot of fun!

[AstroDave]

Taktoon's shooting values and suggestions are right on. In particular, pay attention to focus. Put your exposure dial on M and use manual focus! You may want to use live view on the first few launches while you get focused.

Here are some fireworks shots I took two year’s ago at Niagara Falls from the Canadian side (they have a nice show a couple of evenings a week during the summer and early fall).

I started at ISO 200 and f/11, and decided that 6-second exposures were adequate. Assuming it is dark enough, you can use almost any exposure length - just about the only thing you will see are the fireworks and the brightest stuff in the background. You want exposures long enough to show the launch trail, burst, and subsequent spread of the firework(s). Depending on the launch rate, you may get several bursts in one frame. If you want more events in an image, you can combine shots in post.

Since I was traveling on vacation, I did not have a tripod, but held the camera (K-1 with 28-105 lens) firmly on a stone rail post. The resultant images were tipped a bit since the rail top was not quite level, but that’s easily fixed in post processing. I’ve “leveled” the images shown here, but otherwise NO adjustments have been made to exposure - these are cropped jpegs straight from the camera. I was using manual white balance, but have no recollection of how I set it - I think the WB is close to daylight.



I find this first picture to be a bit bright. It shows nicely the launch trail and smoke that accompanies a typical fireworks show, but the burst itself is very close to overexposed.

After that, I lowered the ISO to 100 and stopped down a bit. The last three shots are at f/13, f/13, and f/16 . I think they are better at showing the fine detail in the bursts, with only the burst centers overexposed. Given the dynamic range of the K-1, they can be brightened if desired to show smoke and other fainter details in and around the show.

Get out there and experiment!