How to Photograph Fireworks on Samsung for New Year's Eve

Fireworks are far brighter than they look and fade within a few seconds, so Auto mode struggles with them: either you’ll get a mostly dark picture with a few tiny sparks, or the burst will be nothing but a white streak.

To get nice-coloured firework trails, use a tripod and shoot in Pro mode, which is possible with a Galaxy too. Set everything up a few minutes before midnight and be ready to go!

Pro mode long-exposure settings

These settings are good for shots across parks/rivers etc., where you need stability (keep the phone nice and still!) and brightness (they use the 1x/main camera, which has the brightest lens).

Apertures are fixed on Galaxy cameras: f/1.4 for the main camera on the S26 Ultra, f/1.9 for the UW. Note that the equivalent settings for fireworks photography with a dedicated camera would be ISO 100, f/11, 1/2s (according to National Geographic!), but since we can’t replicate the small aperture value with our phone cameras, we’ll have to make do with ISO and shutter speed as variables, so set ISO to the lowest value and leave it there.

Longer exposures will result in longer spark trails, but not brighter ones (the sparks are constantly moving). Shutter speed will mostly affect how many bursts you capture per frame, and how bright the skyline/sky will be. A typical burst will fizzle within a few seconds, so 2s shutter speed should be able to capture most of it. Go up to 4s if you only get lone fireworks over a dark sky, and reduce to 1s if you have multiple fireworks bursting at the same time (overlapping spark trails will result in a big white blob).

AF can be hit or miss when shooting fireworks (there’s nothing to focus on in a dark sky!), so switch to MF, slide the focus all the way to infinity, and take a test shot to make sure a distant streetlight is sharp. For white balance, pick the Daylight preset for consistency between frames. Sony even recommends using the Daylight preset for fireworks and night photography in its camera manuals!

Turn on Voice commands (find under Shooting methods in Camera settings) so you can activate the shutter without touching (and potentially shaking) the phone. Alternatively, use the 2s timer and activate the shot as you hear the firework launch. Set Pro mode picture format (find under Photos, then Photo format, in Camera settings) on One UI 9/S26 series phones so you can edit the RAW files later. The Pro mode guide covers every control in more detail.

Use the 1x camera for fireworks shows across a river/park, the UW if you’re closer to the show and want to capture fireworks bursting all over the sky, and the 3x if there’s only one show in the distance and it looks small against the skyline. Avoid using digital zoom beyond the phone’s maximum optical zoom, as any camera shake will be more pronounced during long exposures!

Where to stand and when to arrive

Wind direction is very important. Smoke can ruin your fireworks photos, so National Geographic suggests shooting from upwind if possible. Later in the show, when shooting from downwind, you'll be shooting through smoke illuminated by every exploding shell. If you can, check the wind direction the afternoon before the show and choose your shooting location (preferably a hill or bank) accordingly so that the wind is at your back.

Arrive early and choose your vantage point wisely. Nikon's fireworks photography guide suggests arriving early to get a good position on high ground, and National Geographic recommends scouting your location ahead of time and thinking about foreground interest before dark. Bridges, skylines, and other landmarks give scale to the fireworks and, if there's water nearby, reflections will add interest to your fireworks photos.

Try shooting with the horizon line fairly low in the frame, as shells can travel surprisingly high! Use landscape orientation (sideways phone) for wide displays and portrait (upright phone) for shots of shells travelling vertically. The tripod guide covers small tripods and clamps that fit on a railing.

Burst shots or one long exposure

Long exposures transform shells into arcs of light (best for slow, high shells with long tails); a series of quick shots captures pinpoint sparks. A burst catches the moment in which a large shell explodes (a 2-second exposure would show these explosions as streaks).

If you’re shooting bursts of photos instead of using a long exposure, on One UI 9 go to Camera Assistant and set Swipe Shutter button to edge to Take burst shot (on the Galaxy S25 Ultra in November 2026 that’s where Samsung had it; on One UI 7 you’ll find it in Camera settings). Swipe the shutter button toward the edge of the display and hold it down during the explosion. See the burst mode guide for a more detailed discussion of settings.

Try Samsung’s Night mode if you can’t brace your phone; it takes multiple shots and stitches them together for a brighter image with less noise (handy for illuminating the skyline, too). Keep in mind that a firework’s changing shape during the capture process can result in smeared or blurry light trails. Move to Pro mode as soon as you can. For more information, see the Night mode guide for an explanation of how it all works.

In Expert RAW, Multiple exposure mode allows you to merge images, so you could potentially blend together the prettiest bursts from an entire fireworks show. According to Samsung’s website, you have to choose 12MP in order to access Special photo options. The Expert RAW guide has a list of compatible phones.

Filming the countdown and the display

Samsung says you can manually control ISO, exposure value and white balance with its Pro video mode. Adjust these settings and then hit record and the levels will remain locked in, which is handy since tweaking settings mid-firework can cause brightness jolts in your videos. (In regular Video mode, the camera can brighten darker scenes, for example the sky between bursts, and then readjust for each explosion, causing that pesky pumping effect.)

For shutter speed, shoot at about twice the frame rate, which is known as the 180-degree rule, so 1/60th of a second if you’re recording at 30fps or 1/125th of a second at 60fps. We suggest an ISO between 50 and 200. While you can shoot 8K video at up to 30fps on the S26 Ultra, we suggest 4K at 30 or 60fps since those files will be easier to transfer on a crowded midnight network and the additional frames at 60fps will smooth out those speedy sparks.

Auto FPS (which you’ll find under Videos in Camera settings) changes the frame rate to help brighten video in low light. Since fireworks are bright enough on their own, turn this setting off so your selected frame rate doesn’t change. Hit record before the countdown and try not to touch your phone after that. The video recording guide has more on stabilisation and sound.

Planning a New Year's Eve shoot

Sydney puts on two fireworks displays over the harbour, one at 9pm and another at midnight. Use the earlier show to get a feel for your settings, so you’ll be ready for the big one. Other big cities put on their shows at midnight, but the best viewing areas fill or close hours earlier. If you’re planning on heading to London for NYE, you’ll need to book tickets to see the firework display. According to the official website, entry is between 8pm and 10:30pm.

Cold weather can adversely affect your phone’s battery; Samsung says Galaxy phones work best in temperatures of between 0 and 35°C, and using them in below freezing temperatures could result in unexpected shutdowns. Keep your phone in an inside pocket until shortly before midnight, and make sure you have a power bank that’s fully charged.

You may have to shoot fireworks over people’s heads and raised phones, so make sure you’re leaving some room above the crowd, or shoot from a higher vantage point. It’s not practical to use a full-size tripod, as you’ll be hogging space and blocking the people behind you; consider a small pocket tripod that you can perch on a wall, or a clamp that can attach to a railing. If you're out with the phone over the holidays anyway, the Christmas lights guide uses the same tripod setup for street displays.

Editing fireworks photos

Open the RAW in Snapseed or Lightroom mobile. Start by tweaking the white balance. Bringing down the highlights can recover some colour in the brightest fireworks. Dragging the blacks slider down can help remove any haze in the sky between bursts of fireworks. The Lightroom vs Snapseed comparison can help you pick an editor.

Don’t overdo the saturation adjustment, as fireworks can be very colourful to start with and cranking up the saturation slider too far may result in ugly blotches of colour, particularly in the reds and greens. In either app you can crop off any excess sky around the edges and, if your skyline isn’t level, rotate the image to straighten it out.