hi everyone from the uk . Soon be our infamous 5th November Bonfire Night here in the uk. I usually go to an organised display each year but under current world wide situation we are all in that wont be happening . so i thought i would set my self a photograph challenge . my plan is to go out and about in my car and photograph any bonfire parties and fireworks that are visible ( at a distance ). as you can see i don't have much of a lens set up and i know that using the tripod will be tricky or if not impossible. would love some help and pointers and camera settings i can use . many thanks john
This will definitely be a tricky challenge for you. I would encourage the tripod, but also keep in mind yo will not be able to freeze motion slower than 1/60 anyway so people may become soft on slow shutters, which may be ok if they are not moving around the fire. So experiment with both longer ones up to a second or two if needed, as well as trying to freeze motion depending on the scene yo are photographing. You will need set your ISO somewhat high, test what looks good to you without introducing much noise. Wider apertures will introduce needed light and you will have plenty of dark fall off so no need to get background in focus anyway. So f4-f8 and iso 3200 would be a good ballpark to look at. Your 70-300 you have will probably be your lens of choice shooting at a distance from near your car. I think I wold also try manually focusing, low light your auto focus will hunt and probably not grab what you want. I would expose for the background to be dark and look natural. Just enough for the fire to light the subjects appropriately. If you can include some other light in the background like a lamp on a table or in a tent, I think those will add depth to photo. Well this became a ramble but I think I gave you a number of things to think about.
try making a bean bag type of tripod, something to rest the camera on, maybe a folded towel and use the car to lay it on.
