My first lightning shoot.

jason.moseley

This was fun. Although I had the hardest time trying to focus at a night sky. Any suggestions? I shot mostly at 3-4 second intervals at f1.8 and 50mm nifty fifty.









I got a few more, but they're so out of focus, it makes me sick!

LeeHowell

Awesome :-) Lightening is always so fascinating...Especially when it's captured in an image! I'd recommend switching to MF, and setting it to infinity. Your subject is far enough away (we all hope, at least!) that by leaving it at the maximum distance, your focus should be nice and sharp. Take a few test shots to confirm, and adjust between frames as needed, but it should be just fine set as far as it will go.

jason.moseley

Did I miss something
I had the 50mm on manual focus, but I never could find that "sweet spot" for infinity. The focus ring was about 3-4 millimeters from the left maximum. Did I miss something? Is there a way to know where on the focus ring infinite focus is? I know that once you reach a certain distance, it should all be sharp, but I'm couldn't figure it out so I guessed. And each time I reached up to cover the lens with my hand, when exposure was getting too high, I kept, knocking it back out of focus!! :bash

LeeHowell

I think it's a universal standard on lenses to have infinity all the way to the left (counter-clockwise) and minimum focusing distance all the way to the right (clockwise). Most will have the infinity loop mark on the left side of the barrel, and the minimum focusing distance on the right, with focusing ranges in ft/m in between. Try your first shot all the way to the left. You can also increase sharpness by turning off IS (if applicable), mounting to a tripod, using a shutter remote (or the 10 second timer), and enabling shutter lock-up in the custom functions menu.

Then it's just a matter of waiting :-P

Might want to see if you can also try getting a shot from the other side of the street - Get those power lines and other misc. lights, etc out of frame ;-)