Taking pictures of fireworks

[Ford]

Well I am going to Washington DC for the 4th of July and since I am not sure about taking pictures of fireworks and you really don't get a chance to practice too often, I need your help in making sure the shots I take will be worth the effort I make to minggle among that madhouse on the Mall that night.
I have the Canon Rebel XTi, along with Canon IS 70-300mm and Canon IS 17-85mm lenses, and a monostick.
At this point, I really have no idea what to manually adjust or for that matter which lens will be the most versatile for that night. So any and all tips would be very much appreciated.

[ljameso1]

The most important things to take with you are a TRIPOD, cable release, and wide angle zoom. The shutter speeds will be too slow for a monopod. Set the camera on manual and the shutter to bulb. Keep something black in front of the lens. Use the cable to lock the shutter open and unblock the lens as they explode. Try to wait for 3-4 bursts before closing the shutter(reblocking the lens between). If you want fireworks with lighted monument in shot would be best to wait for the finale- will get a lot of bursts at once so buildings wouldn't burn out. The attached fireworks over a bridge was shot with a 20-35mm zoom, tripod/cable release, iso 100, F5.6, and shutter was only open 3sec because was taken during the finale.

[robpendragon]

You might want to consider a little black piece of paper or something to block the viewfinder when you take the shot, you don't want excess light from someone else's flash to effect the shot (there's always someone standing behind me with a point & shoot & does not know to turn the flash off).

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff92/robpendragon/PA279730.jpg

ISO 100
Exposure 4.0 at F/7.1
Focal length 38mm

[baderms]

Considering the crowds you may not be allowed to use a tripod on the mall for this perticular event. As an option you might want to try setting up at the Iwo Jima memorial across the river. I got some great shots of the fireworks from there about 19 years ago when I first moved into this area. You need to get where ever early though as the good spaces fill up early.

[lexcell]

Fireworks are really pretty easy to do. You want a tripod as already suggested, a remote release to fire the camera, ISO 100 or 200. Set your camera to manual and dial in to the Bub setting. Choose an aperture of F8 or F11 and fire away when the fireworks go off.
The longer you hold the shutter open, the more fireworks you will capture in one frame but, be careful not to overexpose the image. If there is an interesting foreground (reflecting pools, monuments) include them for a more interesting image.
Keep checking your rear lcd to ake sure you are not blowing out the fireworks or foreground, tweak the settings as needed and have a great time. Looking forward to seeing your images.