Hand of God

[bigpuddin43]

Was pretty excited with the weather report the other night we were supposed to get a good storm coming thru with high cloud to ground lightning strikes. Well sadly it went to far south and most of our lightning was just lighting the clouds up with no good streaking. I did finally get a couple good shots. Please let me know what you think of these. I am assuming that because they were further away is why I didn't get good crisp shots that or maybe my focus was off just a touch. the first one I call hand of god because it looks like the back lit cloud is a hand and the lightning is coming out from the finger tips.
Hand of God by johngoodin, on Flickr
14June04001 by johngoodin, on Flickr

 

[TreeofLifeStairs]

How did you do these? I remember years ago I went with a friend and tried to get lightning pics during a dry lightning storm. I chose to take long exposures and capture a wider FOV but he tried to take shots one by one when he saw the lightning. He didn't get many. What was your method?

 

[bigpuddin43]

Theses were shot about 11 pm with 20-30 second exposures. The biggest issue I had that night was the heat lightning blowing out the clouds and sky so that when I did actually get a good streak it was in a blown out area and much of it was lost.

 

[fokker]

Looks like your focus was off, or shaky camera or possibly both. A shame really because these could have been really good.

 

[bigpuddin43]

I agree could have made an awesome photo but was just off enough. The second picture is better but still off. How do you focus in low light situations to get good crisp photos?

 

[fokker]

Well, it's not super easy. I htink the best way is to use manual focus in live view mode and zoom it in on some distant bright point (like a star if there are any) to try and focus on. Otherwise you can try setting the lens to infinity focus by using the marks on the lens focus index, if your lens has these, but I find this method is not very accurate.

 

[CdTSnap]

Def out of focus, Best bet I find is to go to infinity and then back a tiny bit like a couple milimeters

 

[bigpuddin43]

Thanks guys I will give it a shot.

 

[virginie24jb]

the first one I call hand of god because it looks like the back lit cloud is a hand and the lightning is coming out from the finger tips.

This could have been a perfect and incredible shot had it been focused correctly. You're right: the black spot on the right looks like a hand. Amazing!

 

[agp]

The biggest issue I had that night was the heat lightning blowing out the clouds and sky so that when I did actually get a good streak it was in a blown out area and much of it was lost.

Meter using something other than the completely dark sky may help.

 

[bigpuddin43]

The biggest issue I had that night was the heat lightning blowing out the clouds and sky so that when I did actually get a good streak it was in a blown out area and much of it was lost.

Meter using something other than the completely dark sky may help.

I was shooting manual and wasn't going by the metering of the camera. The big issue was that I was using a long exposure so if I got lots of heat lightning during a shot it would brighten the sky so much you couldn't see the streaks. If I dropped my exposure any then if I didn't get the heat lightning the bolts would be dim and not show up very good. I think the main problem was the distance of this storm from my location. Just overall not a good situation but tried to make the best of it and failed.