Summer storms

[Garbz]

Yep it's back Summer is here, the hot pants are out at uni, the bikinis at the beach, or at least it would be if it a) wouldn't be 8pm and b) we didn't have a week of massive storms:

1

2

We had consistent storms like this every night, Monday's was the best. Tuesday I went out and decided to try and photograph it over the city only to be greeted with buckets of rain and hail but no lightning These home shots are the best I've captured so far. Last time I tried I used film and a single strike cost me $30 worth of blank film to get developed

Larger versions on flickr

 

[RKW3]

Awesome!

What's the trick to shooting lightning? Fast shutter and your quick or do you use slow exposures and somehow the lightning composes? I have no experience whatsoever shooting lightning.

 

[kundalini]

They're both good, but #2 is really intense.

 

[benjyman345]

Awesome!

What's the trick to shooting lightning? Fast shutter and your quick or do you use slow exposures and somehow the lightning composes? I have no experience whatsoever shooting lightning.

There are a few techniques.

One is to set the camera on a tripod and use a shutter release cable. Set the camera to bulb mode while a black piece of cardboard or lens cap to blocks light entering the lens, open the shutter and wait for a burst of lightning then cover the lens again and wait for another strike.

This way you have more likelyhood of getting a lightning strike on your photo and can also get multiple lightning exposures.

Obviously you want your aperture stopped down to reduce surrounding light.

The other option is purely luck/fast reaction or wasting a lot of film. (unless of course you use digital)

 

[Garbz]

Set the shutter to 1/100th to freeze the lightning, predict where it's going to strike, compensate for the 50ms shutter lag of the camera point and shoot.

It's actually very easy as said above camera tripod and set the exposure mode to manual in bulb mode. Stop down the aperture so that 10-15 seconds still gives you a very dark base exposure by doing a simple test shot.

I'm not sure what all this black card business is but if you're in bulb you don't need it. Point the camera at the storm and push the button. Count to 15. If you got no strikes let go and push again quickly to start a new exposure. If a strike happened out of the frame as soon as it does do the same thing to basically "reset" the sky to black. Eventually if the camera is pointed in the right direction and lady luck isn't pissed at you you will get a lightning strike in the frame and as soon as it's over let go of the button and you got you picture.

I just noticed the EXIF info didn't survive in the picture:
1: 5seconds f/8 ISO100
2: 10seconds f/9 ISO100

another for you, didn't like it originally but now that I look at it it seems my neighbour has a Tesla coil in his house:

Again 10sec f/9

 

[DPW2007]

Nice captures - number two and three I like the most - nice silhouetting.

David