My best lightning shot thus far

STLMach1

Greetings Everyone,

Here in St. Louis we had an incredible storm role through last night. We're still without power so I have not been able to do much with the shots I took but this one I had to post once I got to the office. After many failed attempts, this has been my best lightning shots to date. I have others from last night that I will try to post once I can edit them a bit but this one is as shot.

Thanks for looking and take care - Michael

gus

Great shot mate...prob one of the hardest things to shot re blowout. Thats a good one !

STLMach1

Thanks Gus!

I hated that it did look a bit blown out but for my second attempt at capturing lightning I was still happy. I'm going to try to tone it down a bit and see if that helps once we get power restored to the house.

Thanks again and take care - Michael

jamesl

Nice job! Those are tough when they are real intense like that. You did a good job with the exposure, and the composition is nice. I heard that was a real intense storm. Glad you made it through ok. : Here is Dallas, we haven't had much photographhic lightning for the past 2 years. We had some decent storms early on in the spring, but not much lightning. :cry I'm still wishing for another year like when I shot this one:



Thanks for the picture!

James

System

I got my first lighting capture today and damn am I mystified as to how to really do it. I guess there's a certain amount of luck involved regardless of skill levels.

AfterImage

truth wrote:

I got my first lighting capture today and damn am I mystified as to how to really do it. I guess there's a certain amount of luck involved regardless of skill levels.

I have quite a few lightning shots in my photo album and it really isn't that difficult to do. I am still learning to shoot lightning on my new digital but I'll try to give you a few pointers.

1. First and foremost for capturing lightning as the storm crashes around you... identify a "Shooting Shelter". Be under something besides a tree. The front porch of your house or a fully open window from your house is the safest. Barring that find a spot the offers reasonable protection. A Car Wash bay or parking garage is a great spot. So is an old fashioned bus stop hut. A pop-up tarp large enough that you can park your car under works well as a mobile shelter. Rig the tarp to keep the rain off your windows and then you can shoot (with a little creativity in tripod mounting) while in the safety of a mobile Farady Cage. NO LIGHTNING PHOTO IS WORTH GETTING A BAZILLION VOLT SHOCK FOR! There are dangers. A nearby strike will destroy your equipment and a direct strike can be fatal. But you can minimize the risk.

2. Take a few test shots to get the lighting of the sky right. Higher fStops is my prefered method which means longer exposures. Set your camera to take 4-6 second exposures so that the background is slightly under exposed. If you catch a strike it will give better lighting and the shot will look a bit more natural. If the storm is very energetic you can make exposure / fStop adjustments on the fly.

3. Not all lightning has the same luminosity, duration or color. Low intensity summer storms (Like "heat lightning") is very red in color and slow. High energy thunderstorms with frequent ground strikes are very blue/white and pop in and out quickly. Cloud to Cloud "Web lightning" is usually medium blue/white, slow and has multiple forks.... very dramatic. There are many species in-between. Learn about them and more importantly watch them.

4. Keep shooting! Only stop occassionaly to check your exposures as the sky darkens, lightens or the intensity changes. During the July 18th storm I shot probably 200 exposures which yielded a dozen or so photographs with lightning. 1/2 of them were so poor I archived them... but 1/2 of them were pretty good!

5. The intensity of the lightning will change as the storm progresses. Start by gauging the speed of the approach. If you can clearly hear the thunder you should be all setup in a SAFE SPOT! The leading edge of thunderstorms will have the lightning band seemingly race up to you. All of a sudden WHAM!! Lightning everywhere! Frequent ground strikes are a characteristic of this phase. As the storm progresses the lightning will tapper off a bit as the rain band crosses your area. There can be a neat mix of ground strikes and cloud to cloud bolts during this time. Photography can be a bit challanging because of this mix and the spray of rain can spot your lens. After the rain band passes you will be in a prime location to get the back end of the storm. The rain will be lighter and you can more clearly capture the variety of strikes (Ground and Cloud) as the storm cell move off towards the horizon.

Again I can't stress enough the importance of being safe and the risks you and your equipment are in during a storm. Tripods are tall metal objects... kinda like a lightning rod... understand what I am getting at?... and digital cameras are sensitive to Electromagntics which can be strong during close strikes. But if you have the urge and the "guts" the pay off can be dramatic.

I hope this helps and stay safe!

ehughes

Great Shot

STLMach1

jamesl wrote:

Nice job! Those are tough when they are real intense like that. You did a good job with the exposure, and the composition is nice. I heard that was a real intense storm. Glad you made it through ok. : Here is Dallas, we haven't had much photographhic lightning for the past 2 years. We had some decent storms early on in the spring, but not much lightning. :cry I'm still wishing for another year like when I shot this one:

Thanks for the picture!

James

Many thanks, James! I know I have a great deal to learn about capturing lightning but I think I'm heading in a good direction. The storm was (according to our local news reports) the worst of its kind (i.e. non-tornadic (with a few exceptions)) here in the St. Louis area in nearly 100 years. It was pretty scary with straightline winds in the 60 mph range. I was lucky and escaped damage to the house (that I've been able to determine at least) but many others were not so fortunate.

The lightning was truly amazing though. That's a great capture that you posted. Where my home is, there is not much open area to capture lightning shots so they are all tight. Of course I could get some great shots from the top of my house as I live on top of a hill with (from the roof) a great view. On the other hand I'm not crazy enough to even think about such a stunt so I'll pass on any shots from there...

Thanks again and take care - Michael

davidryan

Yeah this one pretty much rocks. Good thing it didn't get blown out like so many do. Nature is the mother of extremes!

STLMach1

AfterImage - Thanks for all the information! I will try to put that to good use the next time we have a storm roll through.

Ed & Ryan - Thanks for the thumbs up!

- Michael

System

Afterimage, thanks. I guess my strugle is in the small stuff. Especially shooting lightning during early afternoon storms where I have bright foreground urban scene. I've been toying with layering the sky annd the city from seperate shots but cutting out a detailed skyline is tricky work at best.