storm photography with a nikon d40

[tron]

anyways so theres a big storm about to hit us and i wanted to try and take some storm pics. the thing is, ive only had my d40 for a few weeks and im not too sure on what settings to begin on. i was wondering if anyone had some suggestions as to what settings i should start on?

 

[mark h]

Your best chance of catching some forks is with a long exposure. Set up on a tripod with the "background" you want (obviously you need to be pointing towards the lightning) and take some 20-30 second exposures, varying your aperture, until you find out what is working best for adding a bit of ambient light in the foreground/background. You don't want a black frame with just a lightning bolt visible!

Now just keep taking long exposures and see if you can capture some forks during them

 

[kundalini]

A quick use of the search function produced 40 hits with the keyword "lightning" just in the last month and 55 with the keyword "storm". Just a thought.

 

[Phranquey]

Well, I am a couple of days late in response, but here is a post I placed back in March. About 3/4 down the page, I explained how I get my shots.


http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=114461