It's kind of sad... I've actually had quite a bit of training using cameras and such, and tried for years to take decent fireworks shots with my all-manual SLR, most of which were disappointing. It’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools, but...

Then I get a low-end consumer camera (Canon S3) that has a fireworks mode and suddenly I get good pictures. Ironically, we were a little too close to the fireworks to get the best shots, and I was shooting over the roof of an In n Out with a bright streetlight just out of frame. Of course, you can tell by the image file names that not all of the shots were winners, but with digital shots, film is cheap.