Lightning Bolt.... Ever Seen This Before???

[JTPhotography]

I noticed this when zooming into one of my lightning photos, so I created this image to illustrate it more clearly. I guess I always assumed a lightning bolt was round or flat, but here what I capture in this image is clearly either a three dimensional square or double bolt of some kind. I googled it but didn't much info. Oh well, I thought someone here might have be able to offer an explanation.

 

[RobN185]

Interesting.
The only thing I can suggest is that the pressure (sound?) wave generated by the lightning strike caused the camera to jolt slightly, and since the brightest element of the image is the bolt, this was the only light that registered in that tiny space of time, so only the lightning showed the movement.
Just guessing...

 

[jake337]

UV filter? Shot through a window?

 

[JTPhotography]

Nope, shot with a 50mm lens on a Canon 7d, outdoors. This storm was far off.

 

[christop]

It's camera shake. The clouds are doubled too, if you look at the clouds around the big bright spot where the lightning comes through the clouds.

I also see some noise due to a high ISO. What shutter speed did you use? When I take lightning photos, I keep the ISO as low as possible, the shutter speed low (usually 15 seconds or longer), and the aperture around f/11 or f/16. This makes it easy to capture lightning because it can often be unpredictable.

Edit: I forgot to mention the use of the Mirror Lock Up feature (if your camera model supports it) which helps to prevent shake from mirror vibration. Live View might also work because the mirror has to be locked up in that mode too.

 

[SCraig]

I've seen similar effects when shooting fireworks. Shoot with a rather wide aperture and the streamers are much wider and overexposed than they should be. I think that may be the case here since this was shot at f/8. To get fireworks to look very thin and streamer-like I usually have to go down around f/16 to prevent the sensor picking up the dimmer light around the sparks.

 

[JTPhotography]

Not camera shake. I found it, ribbon lightning.

 

[JTPhotography]

Electrifying image ? a rare lightning phenomenon is caught on camera

 

[deeky]

As I recall, even regular lightning is often a series of several repetitive strikes that follow the same pre-heated path and fire almost like a super-fast strobe. May be that you are catching those multible strikes in the same shot.