After a three year absence, I returned to the waterfront for Fourth of July fireworks. I found the event to be difficult due to traffic in a very small area. But since I have the A6000 now, I wanted to try it out in more low light situations. 

The fireworks were fired off at 9:00ish, about a half hour after sunset. Blue hour time. I adjusted my f/stop to f/18 and ISO to 100 and shot bulb. As the night sky grew darker, I adjusted my f/stop down to f/9 at the end. White balance was set to daylight in camera, but in post I moved closer (but not quite at) the fluorescent preset. 

I shot hundreds of fireworks photos, most from 1-4 seconds long. For the above photo, I used a base photo of the central fireworks but the sky to the left and right were pretty bare. Most of the fireworks were shot into the same area in the sky above the lighthouse or drifted right due to the high wind. I added more fireworks on the left and right sides by layering in Pixelmator and using the blend mode of lighten. 

Download the photo for wallpaper or purchase a print on Zazzle.