I just bumbled across this headline from Gizmodo:

And I clicked on the headline, hoping against hope that it would lead to an article about why you shouldn't take pictures of fireworks with your phone. It wasn't. They've got all kinds of advice—don't zoom, don't be afraid to use portrait orientation, and so on—but they forgot the most important piece of advice for taking photos of fireworks with your phone:

Don't.

Don't bother. Your photos will come out looking like garbage, and nobody—including you—will ever want to see them. Fireworks are one of those rare in-the-moment pleasures that simply don't record well. Videos of fireworks are totally uninteresting because they don't capture the deep-in-the-gut "BOOM" of the moment or the smell of sulfur in the air. All you're doing with your fireworks photo-taking is distracting from your enjoyment of the show, and possibly annoying the people behind you. If you really, really want to keep a photograph of the fireworks, professionals will post their photos online starting the day after the show. Maybe ask one of them if you could buy a print? Or you could just put the phone away and enjoy the moment. It'll be okay if you don't have a record of exactly where you were standing at exactly that moment. You'll survive.