Mini 4 New Year Fireworks

[markcmda]

Good morning all,

As it is New Year’s Eve, I anticipate filming some fireworks in my suburban neighborhood. I have been practicing flying at night, and the new firmware on my Mini 4 allows me to “see” using the vision sensors, a sure aid in avoiding collisions. Does anyone have any experience or suggestions filming fireworks? Safety and distance from the fireworks is an obvious priority. I’m debating filming in night mode at 4K30 versus standard video mode at 4K60. Also trying to get a feel for what altitude to film at. Any help or pointers are appreciated.

Best,
Mark

 

[MikeTX]

Shoot in night mode since the ISO can be much higher than standard.

 

[markcmda]

Shoot in night mode since the ISO can be much higher than standard.

Thanks for the advice. I suppose the higher ISO will allow for more detail in dark areas of the shot. I have seen some instances where the higher ISO of night mode can make shots appear slightly grainy.

 

[rickmurray1989]

Set your focus manually when you spot the first bursts so that it won't hunt. Also, go into Pro mode to control your exposure (ISO, shutter speed). Due to the brightness of most fireworks, you won't need to set the ISO as high as you might think.

 

[markcmda]

Awesome. Thanks so much for the feedback Rick. This is exactly the kind of information I was looking for.

 

[rickmurray1989]

Awesome. Thanks so much for the feedback Rick. This is exactly the kind of information I was looking for.

You are most welcome. I found that these settings have served me nicely when photographing fireworks. While I capture the shows/displays in 4K 60p video, I normally pull them into iMovie and extract the best stills for additional processing to get them to publication quality. Stills extracted from the 4K video yield 8 Mp images that can be quite beautiful when finished. Here are a couple of examples from last July 3 (our city's fireworks display before the 4th).

 

[SWTSU]

Any tips for the Air 2S? I never been able to get good footage with it.

Also, it’s is tough to anticipate height of the cans exploding, haha.

 

[rickmurray1989]

Any tips for the Air 2S? I never been able to get good footage with it.

Also, it’s is tough to anticipate height of the cans exploding, haha.

I would recommend the same settings that I have used on the Air 2, Air 3 and Mini 3 Pro. As for the altitude of the explosions, I generally start off at a good distance from the firing point in order to gauge the width and height of the display. It doesn't take too long to determine if I need to move forward, back or laterally to catch the best views of the airbursts. I have been photographing fireworks for many decades, so I have a fair amount of experience that I have just adapted to my aerial shots. One strong caution... Do not attempt to fly through the fireworks display like some others that I have seen. When I captured the July 3 fireworks last year, there were 3-4 other drones up in the air (none with the required night strobes like I had) who were flying over the festival crowd, flying into the explosion zone and exceeding the 400 feet AGL limit. Fortunately, the local authorities know me and they are well aware that I fly by the rules and safely, so I wasn't blamed for any of the idiocy. On a positive note, once you start capturing fireworks from a bird's eye perspective, you will never want to shoot them from ground level again.

 

[ColinJE]

I work as a Senior Firer for a UK based firework company and also photograph for them. To add to the good advice already given:
- it is always worth checking with the firework crew to find out where the firing site is, what is being fired and when. Then you will have an idea of what you are recording. They may even be flying their own drone or be interested in your photos/video.
- if you want to include the trails of lifts and bursts in photographs then a 5 - 9 second exposure will do the job
- a rule of thumb for shells is: 2 inch will lift to 200 ft with a 20 foot burst, 4 inch at 400 ft with a 40 ft burst and so on
I also supply live feeds to large screens at events and attach a couple of photographs extracted from the video taken at one last year

 

[markcmda]

I work as a Senior Firer for a UK based firework company and also photograph for them. To add to the good advice already given:
- it is always worth checking with the firework crew to find out where the firing site is, what is being fired and when. Then you will have an idea of what you are recording. They may even be flying their own drone or be interested in your photos/video.
- if you want to include the trails of lifts and bursts in photographs then a 5 - 9 second exposure will do the job
- a rule of thumb for shells is: 2 inch will lift to 200 ft with a 20 foot burst, 4 inch at 400 ft with a 40 ft burst and so on
I also supply live feeds to large screens at events and attach a couple of photographs extracted from the video taken at one last year
View attachment 171532

View attachment 171533

Wow. Interactions like this are the reason I joined the forum

What an awesome job you have! The information you provided about shell explosion height and radius is fascinating too. Thanks for sharing some awesome shots!


I filmed around my neighborhood on New Years Eve on midnight, and the quantity of fireworks going off around me was truly amazing. The air was so full of smoke, I could even see it (at night) from the drone.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[rickmurray1989]

I work as a Senior Firer for a UK based firework company and also photograph for them. To add to the good advice already given:
- it is always worth checking with the firework crew to find out where the firing site is, what is being fired and when. Then you will have an idea of what you are recording. They may even be flying their own drone or be interested in your photos/video.
- if you want to include the trails of lifts and bursts in photographs then a 5 - 9 second exposure will do the job
- a rule of thumb for shells is: 2 inch will lift to 200 ft with a 20 foot burst, 4 inch at 400 ft with a 40 ft burst and so on
I also supply live feeds to large screens at events and attach a couple of photographs extracted from the video taken at one last year
View attachment 171532

View attachment 171533

Great advice. I have a longstanding relationship with most of the firing crews in my area, and I always coordinate my operations with them. Unfortunately, there are an increasing number of pilots who don't follow the rules and who pose a risk to legitimate operations. As for capturing the trails, I have gone both ways over the years of photographing fireworks, sometimes capturing trails/lifts with slow shutter speeds and other times capturing the exact moment of the explosions with higher shutter speeds. I think it is just a matter of personal preference.

 

[ColinJE]

Great advice. I have a longstanding relationship with most of the firing crews in my area, and I always coordinate my operations with them. Unfortunately, there are an increasing number of pilots who don't follow the rules and who pose a risk to legitimate operations. As for capturing the trails, I have gone both ways over the years of photographing fireworks, sometimes capturing trails/lifts with slow shutter speeds and other times capturing the exact moment of the explosions with higher shutter speeds. I think it is just a matter of personal preference.

Whether I photograph "trail" or "no trail" normally depends on what the customer wants. Sometimes I will use two cameras, one for each, with the trail camera set to automatically photograph every 8 seconds with a 6 second shutter speed - then delete 90% of the photographs!
Rogue drones are definitely becoming a problem. I was flying inside a stadium for a display and spotted three drones flying behind the display near to the stadium. One of the crew on fire watch said one of them had been very close to some of the shell bursts above the stadium.
At another display a drone - Mavic 2 Pro size - flew directly overhead during set up lower than the surrounding lamp posts. I tracked down the pilot who was around 300 yards away behind some trees and asked him to stop. He said the organiser had asked him to take video of the event, that he had a PfCO so could do what he wanted and he would continue and planned to fly above the crowd during the display to record it. I informed the organiser that if he flew near us again we would pack up and leave and that if I spotted the drone anywhere near the display I would stop firing it immediately and leave. We fired the 6 minute display without further incident.
I think it is getting to the point where firework companies need to consider NOTAMs for displays

 

[rickmurray1989]

Whether I photograph "trail" or "no trail" normally depends on what the customer wants. Sometimes I will use two cameras, one for each, with the trail camera set to automatically photograph every 8 seconds with a 6 second shutter speed - then delete 90% of the photographs!
Rogue drones are definitely becoming a problem. I was flying inside a stadium for a display and spotted three drones flying behind the display near to the stadium. One of the crew on fire watch said one of them had been very close to some of the shell bursts above the stadium.
At another display a drone - Mavic 2 Pro size - flew directly overhead during set up lower than the surrounding lamp posts. I tracked down the pilot who was around 300 yards away behind some trees and asked him to stop. He said the organiser had asked him to take video of the event, that he had a PfCO so could do what he wanted and he would continue and planned to fly above the crowd during the display to record it. I informed the organiser that if he flew near us again we would pack up and leave and that if I spotted the drone anywhere near the display I would stop firing it immediately and leave. We fired the 6 minute display without further incident.
I think it is getting to the point where firework companies need to consider NOTAMs for displays

I completely agree.

 

[GFields]

Saftey first, use high shutter speed and adjust ISO accordingly.

 

[sarahb]

I'm still learning so it will be a long time before I fly at night.