I've attended numerous hot air balloon rallies in the past.

The advise to set your shutter speed fast enough to eliminate blur is a really good suggestion.

Setting your F-stop to obtain a good depth of field is really important.

This brings you to your last and important triangulation setting, your ISO. You don't want to go too high, or you'll end up with a lot of noise or grain in your shots.

DON'T FORGET TO CHECK YOUR WHITE BALANCE SETTING!!!

To optimize the exposure triangle, I usually shoot in manual.

Start with your f-stop at full open, your ISO set between 100 & 400, and your shutter speed around 500 if you're over exposed, move your f-stop to a higher number, if it's still over exposed then up your shutter speed.

If you're under exposed, increase your ISO, but know your camera's limitations up to where you you can shoot without noticeable noise or grain. Run some test shots before you head out to the hot air balloon rally. Shoot some sky and cloud shots as a test at different ISO settings in close succession then view them on your computer, and make sure that you enlarge the test shots and really study the actual quality of the results. You will find that there is a definitive point where the quality will go from good, to poor, to unacceptable. Note those changes and what those ISO settings were.

The angle of the sun to your subject is key to getting spectacular, colorful, sharp shots. Try to avoid shooting into the sun, because you'll lose the spectacular colors of the Balloon envelopes. If you shoot from the correct angles, there should almost be a glow or shine coming off of the envelopes.

Believe me when I say that I've blown through tons of rolls of film in days gone by, only to be disappointed with most of my shots. Since going digital, I haven't had a chance to go back to my mon's hometown to shoot their rally again.

For practice, see if you can team up with someone flying a kite and practice getting shots of a colorful kite. You'll experience a moving object, changing or shifting lighting conditions, and having to adjusting your focal lengths if you're using adjusting telephoto or zoom lens.

If you plan on shooting the inflations, see how close you can get, and shoot into an envelope as they're inflating it, especially when they fire up the burners to heat the air, as the Balloon moves from horizontal to vertical. That part goes really quickly, so you might want to set your camera for continuous shooting, and be ready to get out of the way in a hurry as more and more balloons stand upright. There are guide ropes attached to the top of many balloons to keep them from swaying widely upon standing up. Others have ropes attached to the baskets to help keep them near or on the ground before flights, or to help guide them during landings.

At one rally in ME years ago, I was the only person to be able to grab a rope and run with it away from a line of trees to get the basket to a safe landing zone away from sharp branches that would have damaged the envelope and taken it out of service for a few weeks while it was sent out for repairs.

Choose your lenses for this outing wisely. If you're on the field for the inflations, you want a shorter lens. If your're going to be shooting from a distance, and shooting the take off and flights you want a mid-range zoom. If you're going to be chasing a particular balloon, you will want a designated driver, a longer zoom, and a good set of detailed maps of the area. You'll be surprised at how many back roads you didn't know about in the area when you choose to chase a balloon.

It's fun to shoot the landing, the process of deflation, and packing up of the envelope. Traditionally, there is a Champaign Toast to clear skies and gentle breezes once everything is back on the trailer or loaded into the van or onto the truck.

I've attended numerous hot air balloon rallies in the past.

The advise to set your shutter speed fast enough to eliminate blur is a really good suggestion.

Setting your F-stop to obtain a good depth of field is really important.

This brings you to your last and important triangulation setting, your ISO. You don't want to go too high, or you'll end up with a lot of noise or grain in your shots.

DON'T FORGET TO CHECK YOUR WHITE BALANCE SETTING!!!

To optimize the exposure triangle, I usually shoot in manual.

Start with your f-stop at full open, your ISO set between 100 & 400, and your shutter speed around 500 if you're over exposed, move your f-stop to a higher number, if it's still over exposed then up your shutter speed.

If you're under exposed, increase your ISO, but know your camera's limitations up to where you you can shoot without noticeable noise or grain. Run some test shots before you head out to the hot air balloon rally. Shoot some sky and cloud shots as a test at different ISO settings in close succession then view them on your computer, and make sure that you enlarge the test shots and really study the actual quality of the results. You will find that there is a definitive point where the quality will go from good, to poor, to unacceptable. Note those changes and what those ISO settings were.

The angle of the sun to your subject is key to getting spectacular, colorful, sharp shots. Try to avoid shooting into the sun, because you'll lose the spectacular colors of the Balloon envelopes. If you shoot from the correct angles, there should almost be a glow or shine coming off of the envelopes.

Believe me when I say that I've blown through tons of rolls of film in days gone by, only to be disappointed with most of my shots. Since going digital, I haven't had a chance to go back to my mon's hometown to shoot their rally again.

For practice, see if you can team up with someone flying a kite and practice getting shots of a colorful kite. You'll experience a moving object, changing or shifting lighting conditions, and having to adjusting your focal lengths if you're using adjusting telephoto or zoom lens.

If you plan on shooting the inflations, see how close you can get, and shoot into an envelope as they're inflating it, especially when they fire up the burners to heat the air, as the Balloon moves from horizontal to vertical. That part goes really quickly, so you might want to set your camera for continuous shooting, and be ready to get out of the way in a hurry as more and more balloons stand upright. There are guide ropes attached to the top of many balloons to keep them from swaying widely upon standing up. Others have ropes attached to the baskets to help keep them near or on the ground before flights, or to help guide them during landings.

At one rally in ME years ago, I was the only person to be able to grab a rope and run with it away from a line of trees to get the basket to a safe landing zone away from sharp branches that would have damaged the envelope and taken it out of service for a few weeks while it was sent out for repairs.

Choose your lenses for this outing wisely. If you're on the field for the inflations, you want a shorter lens. If your're going to be shooting from a distance, and shooting the take off and flights you want a mid-range zoom. If you're going to be chasing a particular balloon, you will want a designated driver, a longer zoom, and a good set of detailed maps of the area. You'll be surprised at how many back roads you didn't know about in the area when you choose to chase a balloon.

It's fun to shoot the landing, the process of deflation, and packing up of the envelope. Traditionally, there is a Champaign Toast to clear skies and gentle breezes once everything is back on the trailer or loaded into the van or onto the truck.

Just put the camera in Auto and shoot. You'll get some fine pictures. No sense pulling your hair out trying to figure out manual settings because how creative can you get taking pictures of Hot Air Balloons.

But if you must play with manual settings, just mimic the settings you see when you shoot in any of the other modes. So if you take a picture in full auto and see that your settings are ISO 100, F4.5 and 1/200th of a sec, put the camera in M and use those exact settings. Then go back to one of the other camera modes and try something different and them back to M and mimic that again. You'll soon see a pattern on why M isn't really that much different than the other modes.

In this case I would suggest Auto for you. If you asking what settings to use and we have NOOOOOO ideal what the lighting conditions are or will be, than NOOOOO one can correctly answer your question. The fact that your asking implies you don't know how to use the camera in manual or how the camera actually works. I would suggest getting the book Understanding Exposure 3rd edition and learn about the exposure triangle. This knowledge will allow you to shoot in Any conditions. I'm guessing you'll get about 6 pages of suggestions which will leave you more confused than when you ask the question to start with.. Get the book and get a handle on how a camera works, you'll be happy you did.