Disclaimer: I'm not a professional photographer, but I did some research on the Internet before shooting the July 4th fireworks, and ended up with some not-so-terrible pictures. So this is a summary of the steps I followed.
I have a Canon Rebel XS (EOS 1000D), an entry level dSLR. Most Canon EOS SLRs have similar controls. The thing you need the most while shooting fireworks is a tripod or a solid surface to rest your cam - if you don't have it, don't bother shooting because that would be an absolute disaster. The next important thing would be a remote switch, but I didn't have this. Not having this would induce some vibrations while pressing the shutter, making your pictures less sharp.
You probably know that the 3 main parameters that control your picture's exposure are aperture, shutter speed and ISO. From what I gathered from books and googling, for fireworks shooting, 11 is a good value for aperture, 100 (or the lowest you have) is a good value for ISO. Most pre-programmed modes will set the 3rd parameter automatically once you set the other two - and some modes (like Manual mode) will expect you to set everything. Bulb Mode is a one such manual mode. In this mode, you'll not set a specific shutter speed - you will hold down the shutter button as long as you want, letting in as much light as you think is right. The picture will be taken once you let go of the button.
These are the things to do:
1) Press your ISO button and set the value to 100 or the lowest available
2) Switch to manual mode
3) Hold the Av button and move the dial to set F11 (thus setting the aperture)
4) Start turning the dial anticlockwise (without holding the Av button) to lower the shutter speed. Once you hit the left-most end, you'll see that the shutter speed changed to "BULB" mode. If this step and the previous are not clear, google "canon rebel xs manual pdf" or whatever your model is, search for "BULB" or something like that.
5) Turn on Long Exposure Noise Reduction - to do this, press Menu, keep pressing the right arrow until you get to custom functions and see "Long exp. noise reduction", set this to "1:Auto" or "2:On". I'm told that if this is enabled, the camera will spend some extra time, and there is a possibility of battery draining out sooner, but it will improve long exposure shots - so you may want to turn it off after your fireworks shooting is over.
6) Now setup your tripod, point your camera somewhere up in the air where you expect the fireworks to show their true colors. Of course, this is not easy to predict, so you could just wait for a few of them to light up and then aim your camera there. You may also want to turn your camera vertical, since most of the action would be vertical. Not a mandate though. I've seen some spectacular horizontal pictures that capture fireworks as well as the rest of the place.
7) Once you lock down your camera nice and good, wait until one of them starts flying up and press the shutter button. Wait as long as you want (usually until it bursts out and you see all the colorful stuff) and release the button. It might be difficult to keep looking into your viewfinder, so don't bother doing that - once you point your camera approximately in the right direction, just look at the sky and control the shutter button. Once done, check your picture to see what you got. If you see very less, you let go of the shutter too soon or there wasn't much activity up there. For example,
If you hold the button longer than that, you will get more, perhaps a combination of the one currently up there and the next one flying up, like this:
If you hold it for a very long time, the effect will be quite different - you can search flickr and see some examples. Remeber that none of these is wrong or right, try out various timings to see which one you like the best.
Though I didn't really do this, it looks like it is a better idea to shoot fireworks at the widest angle possible and later crop it if necessary. I had a 28-135mm lens which wasn't cut for wide angle. Besides, there was a woman in front of me poking head in front of the lens wherever I moved. Thanks to the crowd, there wasn't an option to capture the scene around along with the fireworks.
Here are some of the pics I shot this July 4th - http://www.flickr.com/photos/vkay/sets/72157621005300570/
'Nuff said. Good luck!
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