How to photograph lightning

matrix311

Well it's monsoon season here in AZ and we get some amazing lightning shows in the evenings as the storm rolls through. I'm still new to this game and last night I attempted to shoot some lightning bolts across the sky. I landed a few nice ones but the shots i really wanted to get was when the sky was full of lightning. I was able to capture the picture but it was completely washed out due to how bright the lightning was. What tips, settings or adjustments can you recommend for me to capture that perfect image?

Link to album - unedited jpegs right out of the camera.
http://www.esimaging.net/gallery/8976997_7fJuz/1/596650499_Q37qQ

I've uploaded the photos from last night. Some were shot in aV and the rest were shot in manual.

I have the Canon 40D and was using the 17-85mm IS USM.
Shot in Manual
Autofocus off
f/4
.5 second exposure time
ISO 1600

Above were my settings as I fooled around. Once the lightning quit my night ended. As you can see some turned out and others were just completely washed out from how bright the lightning was. How can I prevent this from happening in the future?

Any assistance, tips or recommended settings are greatly appreciated.

Eric

bgarland

I'm just learning myself but what I noticed in your gallery was that most of the shots were taken with ISO set at 1600. That would explain why the bright light blew out many of your shots.

My approach has been to use ISO 100 and an exposure anywhere from 4-8 seconds. I use a remote shutter trigger and point the camera in the general area with the most active lightning then just keep taking shots until I get lucky.

I am looking forward to other's input on this subject since there are many folks out here with a lot more experience than me.

Tim Kamppinen

Use a lower ISO and longer exposure, and probably a smaller aperture like f/8... just play with your settings until you get a decent ambient exposure (not "properly exposed" according to your meter... you want to get some detail but you don't want to turn night into day) and then just keep tripping the shutter as bgarland said. It's basically the same method you'd use for fireworks, except that you'll have more "misses" because the lighting isn't striking at regular intervals.

It's also similar to flash photography, where ISO and aperture control both the exposure of the lighting as well as the ambient exposure, whereas shutter speed controls only the ambient. So, say you take a shot at ISO 200, f/8, and 5 seconds. The lighting is totally blown out but the ambient portion of the scene is just about right. Well, if you stop down to f/11 you'll cut the ambient and lightning exposures in half. So now the lighting looks better but the ambient is too dark. To compensate you would double the shutter speed to 10 seconds, bringing the ambient back up to where it was while maintaining the lightning exposure.

moose135

I just went out Friday night for my first real attempt at shooting lightning. I'm using a Canon 40D, and had the old 18-55 kit lens (from my original 300D). I was shooting Manual, ISO 100, f/7.1. Since the storm was across Long Island Sound over Connecticut, I focused on some lights on the far shore then set the focus to manual. I used a remote shutter release in Bulb mode. I pointed the camera to the area of most activity (and moved as the storm did). I just tripped the shutter, and waited for some good bolts, but in most cases had shutter times of 15 - 40 seconds.

#1 - 28 seconds


#2 - 32 seconds


#3 - 25 seconds


Look close in #3 - in the upper left you see the navigation lights of an airliner (probably heading to LaGuardia) but when I got home and processed the images, I could see the silhouette of the aircraft against the clouds! I was amazed when I saw that!

The rest of the gallery is here: http://moose135.smugmug.com/gallery/9032759_wkjFq/1/601014041_zGUp6

matrix311

wow great shots! I left a comment on your photo gallery.

J.W.Lee Photo

These were taken with a D300 at ISO 200, f/8, and various shutter speeds. The way I shoot lightning is to use a remote release, set a small aperture, and hold the shutter open until I get a good strike or two, sometimes three as with the last shot. The typically only works with a really active storm. Otherwise I would just set to 30sec exposures, ISO 200, and whatever aperture controls the intake of light the best depending on the ambient light. Of course if you are in a well lit area, you may have to bring the exposure time down.

BeachBill

This is my second summer in Las Vegas and despite of the monsoon season, most of the weather, including lightning, has been staying out of the valley. Last week while we were watching a movie we started seeing flashes lighting up our backyard. I waited until the movie was over then went out to check them out. It was a pretty spectacular show with visible strikes every few seconds.

After watching a few very cool strikes I decided I should grab the camera and try to get some nice captures. At first I set up in the backyard, but most of the strikes were obscured by neighbors homes. Then I tried shooting from an upstairs window. This was a little better, but the storm was moving from north to south across the east part of the valley (I live on the west side) so the good viewing of lightning was moving from my backyard to the frontyard and there are no windows on that side of the house.

So I decided to set up on the front porch, with the camera pointed east down the street. My technique is to use my remote shutter cable with camera on a tripod, bulb mode, f/22 (because I had street lights to contend with), ISO 100, then just open up the shutter for up to 10 seconds or until a good strike happens then close the shutter and review the results. By the time I got set up the lightning was dying down and I really didn't have the best vantage point. But I kept at it and was rewarded by a very nice strike that lit the sky.

The following image (uncropped) is a 6 second exposure, f/22, ISO 100. The lightning strike occurred at around second 5. I closed the shutter once the lightning had finished (it is a single strike) and was happy to find a nicely composed shot (love it when the lightning cooperates). I sent this image to my favorite TV weather man and he liked it so much he displayed it on every broadcast of the news the following day.

Photozz

I agree like everyone else is saying use ISO 100. I usually shoot between F/8 & F/12 for the most part (depends if you have a lot of city lights) My settings for this shot were ISO 100, F/8 for roughly 90 seconds on this one. Those are good settings to start from and adjust them from there depending on where you are shooting at and the conditions around you.

Nicolas

I have a question- If I was shooting lightning with a camera mounted on a tripod, using a remote shutter and all that jazz, I would be really tempted to close the shutter immediately after getting a nice jolt of lightning. If you are lucky enough to capture something in say the first.. 5 second or so of your shot, how much longer do you leave the shutter open? Does this depend on what else you are trying to capture or can you close it immediately after getting the lightning? As in the shots with the houses along the beach?

Photozz

You could close the shutter right after the lightning bolt if thats what you want from the shot. I personally like to leave it open longer to be able to get some definition out of the foreground plus also you can catch multiple bolts in one shot. Its really whatever you want to do.

mtbehm

I am new to photography and have a question of a subject that i dont understand. If the shutter speed is 32 sec. how does it capture the quick bolt of lightning?

adbsgicom

mtbehm wrote:

I am new to photography and have a question of a subject that i dont understand. If the shutter speed is 32 sec. how does it capture the quick bolt of lightning?

Because there isn't much other light in the scene. The lightning will 'expose' itself very well, and because your ISO is low (100) and aperture is small-ish, the light from the flash doesn't fully illuminate the scene.

SKnight

mtbehm wrote:

I am new to photography and have a question of a subject that i dont understand. If the shutter speed is 32 sec. how does it capture the quick bolt of lightning?

With a low ISO and a reasonably high f ratio without the lightning the scene would be black. Basically the bolt is all that's bright enough to show up.

Here's a few I caught in Tampa recently.





Please excuse the crudity of this one, I haven't touched it up any but like it because of the ground strike behind the main cloud.

dm50384

keep it safe!
if you get careless lightning can tap you on the shoulder real quick!

f-rider

Great tips, great shots, all

wmm

how do you focus on something that has not happenned yet? In just a dark sky before the bolts, how do you know where to set your focus?

moose135

wmm wrote:

how do you focus on something that has not happened yet? In just a dark sky before the bolts, how do you know where to set your focus?

In the shots I posted above, I used the lights across the Sound to focus on. If you don't have anything like that, you can probably get away with manually focusing at infinity. You might also try focusing at the hyperfocal distance for the lens you are using, which should give you everything from a near distance through infinity in focus.

wmm

Thanks!

SKnight

dm50384 wrote:

if you get careless lightning can tap you on the shoulder real quick!

Holy crap! Scoop up the gear, I'm going in!