Night Storm

[xfloggingkylex]

awesome pictures, but you need to clone out the hot pixels in the lower left and right corners of the first picture.

 

[butterflygirl]

I was just talking to my husband last night about getting some lighting shots and not sure how to do it! These are great! Nice job!

 

[xfloggingkylex]

I was just talking to my husband last night about getting some lighting shots and not sure how to do it! These are great! Nice job!

What most people dont know about lightning photography is how easy it is to get a picture of lightning. Most people think you click the shutter as the bolt hits, when it reality all you need is a slow shutter speed, a somewhat small aperture (to allow less light in, so you dont overexpose), and as low an ISO as possible.

Now set your camera on a tripod, set the shutter to 5+ seconds, mirror lock up and remote timer if you have it, and pray for lightning. If anytime during the time the shutter was open lightning hit, it will be in your picture. Since it is usually dark out you dont have to worry about exposing the rest of the picture too much.

 

[Passion4Film]

My problem seems to be (not that I've tried a whole lot) that when I do get lightning in the shot, it's more of just a big burst of illuminating light than actually catching bolts.

 

[xfloggingkylex]

I forgot to mention, focus to infinity, and of course the wider angle lens the better (unless you are really good at predicting strike locations. focusing to infinity will make sure that the lightning is in focus. Not sure about the whole illumination thing. I just know for lightning during night thunderstorms, I do about 10 seconds at f/8 and iso as low as possible. That is a pretty good starting point and if it is really storming, you should get some lightning within 10 seconds.

EDIT: This was a 10 second exposure at f/9.5 ISO 200