Stormy Night in Cottonwood

ForeheadForehead Registered Users Posts: 679 Major grins
edited July 31, 2006 in Holy Macro
Well, folks, we're finally getting the RAIN we so badly need here--along with some KEWL lightning!
Steve-o

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  • ForeheadForehead Registered Users Posts: 679 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    More lightning, shot from my garage.
    Forehead wrote:
    Well, folks, we're finally getting the RAIN we so badly need here--along with some KEWL lightning!
    Steve-o
  • ForeheadForehead Registered Users Posts: 679 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    Another shot from my garage. By the way, you're looking East toward Sedona. As the storm moved West and South, the lightning became more horizontal (I'll show those shots next).
    Forehead wrote:
    Well, folks, we're finally getting the RAIN we so badly need here--along with some KEWL lightning!
    Steve-o
  • ForeheadForehead Registered Users Posts: 679 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    Now I'm shooting from the South side of my house. The lightning's more horizontal. Which of you atmospheric scientists and weather gurus can tell us what determines general lightning orientation?
    Forehead wrote:
    Well, folks, we're finally getting the RAIN we so badly need here--along with some KEWL lightning!
    Steve-o
  • ForeheadForehead Registered Users Posts: 679 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    Ok. Do we call this Lazy Lightning if it's horizontal?
    Forehead wrote:
    Well, folks, we're finally getting the RAIN we so badly need here--along with some KEWL lightning!
    Steve-o
  • ForeheadForehead Registered Users Posts: 679 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    OK. One more for now. I was able to "harvest" quite a few lightning shots in three groups last night: the first around 8pm, the second around 10:30pm, and the last around 2:30am when another storm rolled in and woke me up (I usually sleep through lightning storms but not this time). :D
    Forehead wrote:
    Well, folks, we're finally getting the RAIN we so badly need here--along with some KEWL lightning!
    Steve-o
  • DeeDee Registered Users Posts: 2,981 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    Lightening's so cool
    But I rarely get to see it living on the west coast. I only once was able to catch some lightening shots -- and not very good ones at that. I'm sure there's some method involving seeing where the lightening is striking and involving tripods and long exposures????

    Anyway I like all of your photos. I did first see "lazy" lightening out here and was fascinated watching it. I was driving home from Silicon Valley on the highway and there was no place to stop or pull over to take photos.
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  • Awais YaqubAwais Yaqub Registered Users Posts: 10,572 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    great work mate superb
    Thine is the beauty of light; mine is the song of fire. Thy beauty exalts the heart; my song inspires the soul. Allama Iqbal

    My Gallery
  • Scott_QuierScott_Quier Registered Users Posts: 6,524 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    Love the photos. Makes me want to go out and try. We get lightening here (eastern Virginia) all the time, but we also get huge cloud cover every time. I've been living here for about 14 years and I have experienced a large number of thunderstorms. I have only seen maybe 3 or 4 lightening strikes in that whole time. And each time it's been while I was driving. For that reason, among a lot of others, I miss living in the southwest (used to live near Albquerque, NM for about 5 years while in the US Air Force).
    Scott
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  • ForeheadForehead Registered Users Posts: 679 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    Well, having lived in SoCal for the past seven years (I finalized my move back to Cottonwood a whole week ago), I can count on one hand the number of lightning bolts I saw the whole time there.

    Oh, I had some business trips in the Bay Area last week (I'll post some Golden Gate Bridge shots a little later) and, while I'm used to heat, the brutal summer--especially in the South Bay/San Jose area--has had building engineers scrambling to keep the building tenants cool. The unannounced blackouts hadn't helped any.

    OK, as for the lightning shots, these are the settings recommended by a fellow D-grinner and they work very well:

    Low ISO (my Nikon E5400 goes down to ISO 50)

    Aperture down as far as you can go. However, my camera only goes to f/8.0, but accidently leaving it at f/6.4 had negligible impact on quality.

    The above two are meant to make your capture media so insensitive to light that only lightning will give enough photons to make an exposure (unless you keep your shutter open for five minutes or so but, if it's THAT long between lightning flashes--MUCH longer where you're at--the storm's really pretty dull).

    White Balance "Speedlight" (to prevent BLUE lightning)

    Long exposure times, which is more of a waiting duration to catch any lightning. Similar to fishing, actually; sometimes a cast catches a fish right away, and sometimes your last cast was a half-hour ago and still no bite.

    Oh, and if the storm is both very active and very close, a wide-angle lens is recommened.

    As I wait for the lightning, I have my shutter timed for three minutes, but I usually only keep it open for 30-45 seconds at a time (far less if I catch a strike right away) as my camera tends to produce artifacts that show up as white points of light that are uncharacteristic of the usual "noise". I think my camera's on the way out, and I hope to go full DSLR soon.

    Try the above settings, and you may find that shooting lightning isn't nearly as hard as some people might think!

    Dee wrote:
    But I rarely get to see it living on the west coast. I only once was able to catch some lightening shots -- and not very good ones at that. I'm sure there's some method involving seeing where the lightening is striking and involving tripods and long exposures????

    Anyway I like all of your photos. I did first see "lazy" lightening out here and was fascinated watching it. I was driving home from Silicon Valley on the highway and there was no place to stop or pull over to take photos.
    Steve-o
  • SystemSystem Registered Users Posts: 8,186 moderator
    edited July 30, 2006
    sa weeeeeeet .. thumb.gifclap.gif if it ever decides to rain in my part of oklahoma i'am going to give this lightning thing a try ... love yours...the cloud to cloug lightning is usually a pretty good sign of lot of upper level disturbance...
  • ForeheadForehead Registered Users Posts: 679 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    Yeah, that Southwest lifestyle does leave an indelible mark on a fella, doesn't it. Albuquerque's grown quite a bit, you know and, if you want to move back, do it now or you'll only find room in some place like Roswell (now THERE'S and idea for getting unusual shots--hint:UFO)!
    Scott_Quier wrote:
    Love the photos. Makes me want to go out and try. We get lightening here (eastern Virginia) all the time, but we also get huge cloud cover every time. I've been living here for about 14 years and I have experienced a large number of thunderstorms. I have only seen maybe 3 or 4 lightening strikes in that whole time. And each time it's been while I was driving. For that reason, among a lot of others, I miss living in the southwest (used to live near Albquerque, NM for about 5 years while in the US Air Force).
    Steve-o
  • ForeheadForehead Registered Users Posts: 679 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    Oklahoma. NO stranger to lightning, thank you very much! When I was stationed in Ft. Sill (near Lawton), I had lightning crack virtually right over my head!

    Is Oklahoma still in a drought?
    allensphoto wrote:
    sa weeeeeeet .. thumb.gifclap.gif if it ever decides to rain in my part of oklahoma i'am going to give this lightning thing a try ... love yours...the cloud to cloug lightning is usually a pretty good sign of lot of upper level disturbance...
    Steve-o
  • ForeheadForehead Registered Users Posts: 679 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    Thank you! And how are the storms in YOUR part of the world?
    Awais Yaqub wrote:
    great work mate superb
    Steve-o
  • Awais YaqubAwais Yaqub Registered Users Posts: 10,572 Major grins
    edited July 30, 2006
    Forehead wrote:
    Thank you! And how are the storms in YOUR part of the world?
    nearly half country drowned eek7.gif thanks God i live in capital even some areas in capital drowns in rainy season hearing daily newses of deaths due to heavy rains and water :cry
    Thine is the beauty of light; mine is the song of fire. Thy beauty exalts the heart; my song inspires the soul. Allama Iqbal

    My Gallery
  • spudjerspudjer Registered Users Posts: 42 Big grins
    edited July 31, 2006
    Try the above settings, and you may find that shooting lightning isn't nearly as hard as some people might think!

    Nice shots Forehead..

    The hardest thing about shooting lightning is getting a location where you are not the highest point!

    BTW, I sleep thru those too, and this one woke me up in Phoenix....BOOOMMM...got three inches of water in the pool...thumb.gif
    I'm worried about Gort. I'm afraid of what he might do, if anything should happen to me.:dood

    Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!
  • ForeheadForehead Registered Users Posts: 679 Major grins
    edited July 31, 2006
    Funny thing about lightning: you DON'T have to be at the highest location as what you're shooting at is usually so much higher than you anyway! Those shots I took were from my house..near the bottom of a hill...and underneath either the garage or back patio. rolleyes1.gif

    Of course, if I really have to get that top-shot, I can drive to the top of Mingus Mountain (about 20 minutes from here), and sit on that little concrete jump ramp they have for the hang gliders!


    Oh, but hey: three inches of FREE water in your pool. Depending on the size, that's anywhere between 300 and 3,000 gallons!
    spudjer wrote:
    Nice shots Forehead..

    The hardest thing about shooting lightning is getting a location where you are not the highest point!

    BTW, I sleep thru those too, and this one woke me up in Phoenix....BOOOMMM...got three inches of water in the pool...thumb.gif
    Steve-o
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