First try at shooting lightning

[SensePhoto]

First try at shooting lightning, CC and pointers appreciated.

1.
Picture (3 of 3).jpg by Anton Bachuk, on Flickr

2.
Picture (2 of 3).jpg by Anton Bachuk, on Flickr

3.Cant see the actual bolt but i love how bright everything is, looks like day time.
Picture (1 of 2).jpg by Anton Bachuk, on Flickr

4.
Picture (2 of 2).jpg by Anton Bachuk, on Flickr

 

[Drake]

Good shots, but they all are missing something. But don't worry, shooting lightning is 1/3 about the skills, and 2/3 about luck. I am wondering why the first one is so noisy, what ISO were you shooting at?

 

[SensePhoto]

Good shots, but they all are missing something. But don't worry, shooting lightning is 1/3 about the skills, and 2/3 about luck. I am wondering why the first one is so noisy, what ISO were you shooting at?

They are pretty crappy shots not gonna lie lol but i figured its an opportunity to learn if i post them here for you guys to look at. I figured it was all about speed so after opening aperture (f2.0) I upped ISO to 1250 and set the shutter speed to 1/50 in high burst mode. So as soon as the sky lit up I would hold the shutter button down and take a burst of pictures. Probably a completely wrong way to do it but a thunderstorm rolled in so I went out shooting without doing any research prior.

 

[Drake]

Shooting lighting is not about shutter speed. It's light and short enough to render sharp regardless of the shutter speed. It's pretty much like a big camera flash.

Set your ISO to the lowest value as you would for a typical landscape. You'll have to figure out what aperture works best for you, but I'd suggest starting with something like f8. I assume you were shooting with your 50mm 1.4. Going wider won't hurt, try something like 24mm. Now there are 2 ways of shooting lightning:

1) Get your tripod out of the closet and mount your camera. Remember to set your focus. I suggest to do it manually, if you're using a wide lens and f8 just set it short of infinity and you're good. Also make sure to have the IS turned off as it can make a mess with the camera on a tripod. Set the shutter speed to 30s and fire away hoping you'll get a nice lightning in your photo. If not - try again. Shoot till you succeed. Remember that with such a long exposure you will be getting a lot of ambient light in your shot, meaning you have to also keep in mind a nice composition of your foreground. You don't have to shoot at 30s though, you might try bulb mode if you want to. It all depends how much light you have in your foreground.

2) This is the way I usually do it, especially if I don't have a tripod with me. Shoot handheld. As before, get a wide lens, set it to f8, ISO 100 and focus the same way. But this time use a faster shutter speed. Try 3 or 5 seconds. Point your camera at the sky and fire repeatedly. With a shutter speed of 3-5 seconds you won't be getting the ambient light in the foreground, but again, it is going to depend how much light there is in your area. What you get is a photo of (hopefully) a lightning and some tree silhouettes, pretty much like your shot #3. It requires a little bit more luck than method 1, but certainly less than shooting with 1/50.

 

[Jeatley]

Good shots, but they all are missing something. But don't worry, shooting lightning is 1/3 about the skills, and 2/3 about luck. I am wondering why the first one is so noisy, what ISO were you shooting at?

WRONG. Sorry Shooting lightning is more skill then luck. But there is more to it then just photography. you must pay attention to the storms and track them to be at the right postion at all times and ready and waiting. It is more about Skill and Patients

 

[Jeatley]

Shooting lighting is not about shutter speed. It's light and short enough to render sharp regardless of the shutter speed. It's pretty much like a big camera flash.

Set your ISO to the lowest value as you would for a typical landscape. You'll have to figure out what aperture works best for you, but I'd suggest starting with something like f8. I assume you were shooting with your 50mm 1.4. Going wider won't hurt, try something like 24mm. Now there are 2 ways of shooting lightning:

1) Get your tripod out of the closet and mount your camera. Remember to set your focus. I suggest to do it manually, if you're using a wide lens and f8 just set it short of infinity and you're good. Also make sure to have the IS turned off as it can make a mess with the camera on a tripod. Set the shutter speed to 30s and fire away hoping you'll get a nice lightning in your photo. If not - try again. Shoot till you succeed. Remember that with such a long exposure you will be getting a lot of ambient light in your shot, meaning you have to also keep in mind a nice composition of your foreground. You don't have to shoot at 30s though, you might try bulb mode if you want to. It all depends how much light you have in your foreground.

2) This is the way I usually do it, especially if I don't have a tripod with me. Shoot handheld. As before, get a wide lens, set it to f8, ISO 100 and focus the same way. But this time use a faster shutter speed. Try 3 or 5 seconds. Point your camera at the sky and fire repeatedly. With a shutter speed of 3-5 seconds you won't be getting the ambient light in the foreground, but again, it is going to depend how much light there is in your area. What you get is a photo of (hopefully) a lightning and some tree silhouettes, pretty much like your shot #3. It requires a little bit more luck than method 1, but certainly less than shooting with 1/50.

now I agree with most of this! By the way, shooting lightning is one of my favorite things to do!

 

[Smitty91]

This would help you get the strike, but you still have to figure out the proper exposures.


Capture the Lightning Landscape with the Lightning Trigger!

 

[SCastellari]

Capture the Lightning Landscape with the Lightning Trigger!

Any direct experience with this? Does it really works?

Thanks

 

[SensePhoto]

Shooting lighting is not about shutter speed. It's light and short enough to render sharp regardless of the shutter speed. It's pretty much like a big camera flash.

Set your ISO to the lowest value as you would for a typical landscape. You'll have to figure out what aperture works best for you, but I'd suggest starting with something like f8. I assume you were shooting with your 50mm 1.4. Going wider won't hurt, try something like 24mm. Now there are 2 ways of shooting lightning:

1) Get your tripod out of the closet and mount your camera. Remember to set your focus. I suggest to do it manually, if you're using a wide lens and f8 just set it short of infinity and you're good. Also make sure to have the IS turned off as it can make a mess with the camera on a tripod. Set the shutter speed to 30s and fire away hoping you'll get a nice lightning in your photo. If not - try again. Shoot till you succeed. Remember that with such a long exposure you will be getting a lot of ambient light in your shot, meaning you have to also keep in mind a nice composition of your foreground. You don't have to shoot at 30s though, you might try bulb mode if you want to. It all depends how much light you have in your foreground.

2) This is the way I usually do it, especially if I don't have a tripod with me. Shoot handheld. As before, get a wide lens, set it to f8, ISO 100 and focus the same way. But this time use a faster shutter speed. Try 3 or 5 seconds. Point your camera at the sky and fire repeatedly. With a shutter speed of 3-5 seconds you won't be getting the ambient light in the foreground, but again, it is going to depend how much light there is in your area. What you get is a photo of (hopefully) a lightning and some tree silhouettes, pretty much like your shot #3. It requires a little bit more luck than method 1, but certainly less than shooting with 1/50.

Hey thanks a lot for this, i'll copy this down and refer to it next time, it makes sense.

 

[SensePhoto]

Capture the Lightning Landscape with the Lightning Trigger!

Any direct experience with this? Does it really works?

Thanks

+1

 

[Smitty91]

Unfortunatley no, no first hand experience. Just learned about it myself.

 

[Drake]

Good shots, but they all are missing something. But don't worry, shooting lightning is 1/3 about the skills, and 2/3 about luck. I am wondering why the first one is so noisy, what ISO were you shooting at?

WRONG. Sorry Shooting lightning is more skill then luck. But there is more to it then just photography. you must pay attention to the storms and track them to be at the right postion at all times and ready and waiting. It is more about Skill and Patients

Well yeah, kind of depends how you look at it. It isn't that hard to predict if it's going to strike from north or south. After shooting for a while you really start to get it. But still, all you can do is predict roughly the way to shoot with a wide angle lens. When you want to use a longer lens, then it's mostly luck.