How do you take lightning photos?

[Rusty W. Griswald]

Tried my first lightning photos with the D70 last night.

http://www.pixspot.com/albums/userpics/ ... zoomed.jpg
http://www.pixspot.com/thumbnails.php?album=126
(These shots are zoomed in with photoshop, no other processing)
Was driving along and pulled over, had no tripod, no torch and no idea. Fumbled around and managed to set it to 5 sec exposure and hope for the best.

Most of the pictures were out of focus, I found it very difficult to hold the camera perfectly still on the top of the car plus the autofocus was having a hard time trying to find anything to focus on as well.

Now await the "How to take decent ligtning photos" sticky
with tips 1. Take tripod and 2. Take torch

Used the 18-70 kit lens.
Rusty.

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[Raydar]

Done well mate!!!

One thing to make it a bit easier goes to manual focus & set it on infinity.
Open the aperture right up as far as it will go, put the cam into manual & bulb & open it up a wait for a strike….

That’s it in a nut shell, have a look at the preview & if it looks like the highlights are blown out steep the f-stop down a bit to compensate.

& don’t stand under trees or metal objects that are higher than you are.!!!!!!!!!!!
If you get court in a lightning active storm crotch down in a tight ball with only the balls of your feet touching the ground & wait for the storm to pass.

Hope this helps!!!

Cheers
Ray

[Rusty W. Griswald]

Thanks Ray

Do you have any idea what I should set the white balance to with such shots?

[sheepie]

Thanks Ray

Do you have any idea what I should set the white balance to with such shots?

Hi Rusty - best advice I can give on White Balance is to shoot RAW with either WB set to Auto-2 or Sunshine-2

Depending on whether there's street lighting etc in the shot, you may consider going with Incandesant (SP?), but by shooting RAW you are giving yourself the best chance of getting it right

Otherwise, lightning is all about trial and error - key things (mostly already mentioned around the place):
Focus manually on infinity
Set as high an F-stop as possible (gives you longer exposure time)
USE A TRIPOD

And remember - you don't have to spend millions to get photo's processed and be disappointed. If you don't get lightning in one shot, keep trying. You'll eventually get there, and the number of shutter releases you will make getting that special shot will seem like nothing once you get it

(Should I put in a link here? Nah - have a search for lightning in this forum and see what you come up with - people are probably sick of seeing my shot )

[Killakoala]

& don’t stand under trees or metal objects that are higher than you are.!!!!!!!!!!!

I can vouch for this. NEVER, EVER, EVER stand under a microwave tower in a storm. I lost 30 seconds of my life because i did. Fortunate to still be alive. <-- I looked like this......But that's another story for another time

Sheepie said: (Should I put in a link here? Nah - have a search for lightning in this forum and see what you come up with - people are probably sick of seeing my shot )

You have a lightning photo???? (<--Insert sarcasm here)

[Raydar]

Basically lightning go’s up most of the time, the clouds are the negative & the ground is positive. If you watch a lightning strike on film in slow motion you can see this happening.
During an electrical storm everything around has what they call leaders reaching up like small electrical fingers, when the negative charge from the clouds finds one of these leaders the circuit is joined & that is when the big flash is seen.
Any thing that is tall “trees, towers, etc” are closer to the clouds so are more likely to be a good target!!!!!!
I use white balance set at sun -3 most of the time but other setting would be good to add colour to the image & get some awesome effects happnin.

One thing you can use as a guide is if the storm is fairly close & you are wearing a hat take it off & if your hair feel like it is sticking up in the air “static electricity” get back in the car & move farther away, that’s the effect of the feelers I was talking about before.
Lightning can happen a fear way out in front of a storm “Under the anvil”!!!!!!!!!

Hope this helps

Cheers
Ray

[sirhc55]

Raydar - what about lightning that is horizontal?

Chris

[Raydar]

That's when you have +.. - clouds mate & the circuit is closed in cloud!!!
There’s three types of lightning….. CG- cloud to ground, CC-cloud to cloud…
& the one that runs along under the anvil is called Anvil crawler.

Cheers
Ray

[sirhc55]

That's when you have +.. - clouds mate & the circuit is closed in cloud!!!
There’s three types of lightning….. CG- cloud to ground, CC-cloud to cloud…
& the one that runs along under the anvil is called Anvil crawler.

Cheers
Ray

There is a fourth - the one that hits you and is called The Bastard

Chris

[Raydar]

& the one that hit's real close that's called "F&%k that was close"
or F*#k let's get out of here!!!!!
We use those names quite alot!!!

Cheers
Ray

[Marvin]

Well, I was just reading this thread today and lo and behold, tonight we had a lightning storm. Very handy guys, thanks!!!