Hi, This Saturday, there is a fireworks over a big river that runs through Osaka. I found a nice spot about 2 kilometres from the venue. This is my first time shooting a timelapse. I once took pictures for which I used an ND8 filter.
I have a Canon EOS 5D MK IV, I'll use a 70-200 Tamron 2.8 lens and the LRT pro timer.
My question what would be a suitable shutter speed and interval?
The event last about 1 hour. I did some calculating, and at an interval of 2 seconds, I will be shooting close to 2.000 pictures. That's a lot.
What is an acceptable interval? What is the recommended shutter speed?
Thanks for your help,
Hugo

Usually timelapse is being used to show slow movements faster. But fireworks are fast, so timelapse is not ideal to showcase the beauty of a firework. Usually Film or even slow motion might be better.
If you want to do timelapse, for fireworks usually you should use very short intervals, if you want anything a bit smooth.

But of course, if you want to show the progression of the smoke that fireworks create overt the time of 2 hours in 10 secs, then you would need way larger intervals. But then evey single firework might only be visible in one or two frames, leading to a very fast progression.

As you can see, it comes down to what you want to accomplish and which visual result you are aiming for.
If I were you, I would do some experimenting. Start with a very short interval (1 sec, 1/2 sec shutter) at the beginning, capture 500 images that way. After that you could set up the camera for a longer interval to capture a longer timespan (bigger acceleration).
If you increase the interval you should also increase the shutter time. But take care not to blow the highlights too much. You might need to compensate via the aperture.

Make sure to share your results afterwards in the showroom: https://forum.lrtimelapse.com/Forum-showroom

Hi, I couldn't access the forum from my iPhone. Thank you for the quick response and suggestions. Perhaps I'll shoot some pics first and capture the climax as a time-lapse. I wrote to you on Insta. My Name is Kyotodreamtrips. I'll post the link. Have a great weekend Hugo.

I just did, maybe the problem occurred when I wanted to reply to your message. It took me to the login’s page. Anyway I can access now. I logged in at the top page.

Thanks for your detailed answer, fingers crossed. Have a great weekend. Japan is currently in a heat wave 38-39 Celsius and humid

Hi,

Fireworks Timelapse is indeed challenging. In LRTimelapse, I used the filter option and that worked fine. When I tried to use Keyframe Wizard, it only picked the dark frames with no fireworks.
After I did the filter option, I went straight into auto transition, Visual Previews and Visual deflicker.
In LR, I am using "read meta data from files".
Is this the best way forward?
Another option would be to manually do each frame with fireworks, which would be a huge undertaking.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
There are a few more fireworks festivals in my area of Kansai. I was surprised that there were so many people. I did find a spot.
I had brought two tele lenses, but my 50mm lens would have done a better job, even though I was 2 kilometres from the venue. The fireworks filled the whole sky many times. Oh my...
I had fun, and there was an incredible atmosphere all around.
Thanks for your help,
have a great day,
Hugo

I used the keyword wizard, and I was able to fix the pictures. Good news. Hopefully, I can share the timelapse soon.
Here's a link for the pictures I took on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kyotodream...0310345918
Good night, Hugo