Taking pictures of Lightning.

[BrainEater]

I'm sure there is a chapter in 'DSLR's for dummies' about this but I have not found it yet.
Today we had a very active electrical storm . I didn't have my camera on me to try ,but I was thinking about getting good lightning shots.
I have to assume it's a photo-trigger I need.
Big lens ? small lens ?
Fast ? slow ?

Any and all input appreciated !!

 

[CuriousMike]

Norcal doesn't have a lot of lightning storms, but the one day I had an opportunity, I quickly threw my camera up on my tripod and used the built in intervoltometer and had it crank photos ad naseum.

Due to the time of night, I set the camera for 8 second exposures at ISO 400.
No idea why I picked those settings; if I was thinking about it, I would have picked ISO 100 and had a 8*2*2 =30 second exposure?

 

[artemicion]

1) put your camera on a tripod.

2) compose your shot. i.e., point the camera somewhere to get a nice background and in the general direction of the storm.

3) set your ISO/aperture to something that will produce around 6-8 second shutter speeds.

4) use your camera's intervalometer (generally used for time lapse, automatically takes pictures at regular intervals. any DSLR will likely have one.) to shoot at regular intervals, minimizing the amount of time between shots.

5) wait.

 

[BrainEater]

Awesome , Thanks.

Got the intervalometer setup , just playing with the ISO etc...

We are supposed to get hammered this week by thunderstorms , we'll see what happens.

 

[CuriousMike]

Awesome , Thanks.

Got the intervalometer setup , just playing with the ISO etc...

We are supposed to get hammered this week by thunderstorms , we'll see what happens.

I look forward to your results !

Don't forget a big-assed memory card and fully charged battery.

 

[Crotulus]

Live Composite on the Olympus OMD line (EM5ii in my case) works for this type of shot too, correct? I have not had a chance to try the feature out yet but I'm thinking that 4th of July fireworks would be as good a time as any. Anyone have any tips for starting settings as far as aperture and shutter speed go? Thinking of using either my 25mm or 45mm f1.8 primes depending on how far I am from the action. If there is no need to go so large of an aperture I could use the 12-40mm f2.8 to zoom to the best field of view.

Thanks!

 

[BrainEater]

I'm not sure about Olympus cameras.

Fireworks is very much the same kind of shot though , I'll be taking my camera to the Calgary Stampede to try out fireworks photographs !!

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I look forward to your results !

Don't forget a big-assed memory card and fully charged battery.

Yep, 2 of each.

We've had major thunderstorms every night , but nothing really electrical like the generator we had Wed. There were 2 buildings within 1 mile that were struck and lit on fire that night !!

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I am hopeful I will have a picture host within 1 week.I'm looking at MS OneDrive , we use that suite for work so.....

 

[radhak]

Good info here.

Mike, that's a great shot! I love the blue of the sky against the clear lightning streaks!

What's the 8*2*2 calculation you did to determine exposure time?

 

[CuriousMike]

What's the 8*2*2 calculation you did to determine exposure time?

To be clear, I was trying to state that I can't remember why I picked an 8 second exposure.
Furthermore, I picked ISO 400... not sure why.

My thinking was: Well, I could lower the ISO and extend the exposure time, therefore giving me a longer single exposure and having a greater chance of picking up a lighting strike within that one frame, and possibly having less grain (lower ISO ).

Doing the stop conversion on a napkin ( and maybe this is wrong )
8 seconds = iso 400
15 seconds = iso 200
30 seconds = iso 100

8*2 =15 * 2 = 30

 

[Raduque]

Don't ask me how, but I managed these two

I just braced the camera hard against the edge of my truck bed with the lens pointed at the clouds and with exposure/focus lock on (half press) and triggered the shot as soon as I could when the lightning hit.

 

[CuriousMike]

Nice! I really like the first one, how it lights the clouds... sweet!

 

[BrainEater]

Yea that 1st shot is awesome !

:thumbsup:

 

[Gooberlx2]

We had a very active thunderhead East of where I live a last week.

This is one of the better shots.

Also managed this quick timelapse. Something bumped my camera halfway through and altered the zoom/focus though.

https://gfycat.com/SilverPlainDogwoodclubgall

 

[CuriousMike]

Looks like an atomic cloud... very neat!