Last year we were too exhausted from moving to enjoy any fireworks, but this year we had a great time! The city fireworks where we live our right in the park in our neighborhood, so we can just walk about a mile for a really nice show.
I used my Canon 7D Mark II on a tripod with a remote shutter release, and the Tokina 12-28mm ultra-wide lens. You have to do everything manual style. I let the autofocus system focus at infinity on a distant water tower before it got too dark, and then switched the lens to manual focus mode and didn't touch it. If the autofocus system tries to work when it's dark out and fireworks are going off, you'll never get anything. You also have to set manual exposure. I set the camera for 4 second exposures at f/8, and ISO 200 earlier on when there was still some light in the sky, and then ISO 400 as it got a bit darker. A remote shutter release is needed because if you're trying to press the shutter release on the camera itself, you'll introduce vibrations into the camera and tripod setup and will end up with blurry photos when using a 4 second exposure. I left the camera positioned horizontally, and then just cropped to vertical in post-processing. Voila! Not much to it. :)
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