How do you capture lightning?

[Pauld]

Hi all

I am looking for some advice as to how to capture lightning in a photo.

There were some great storms here tonight and I could not manage to capture anything decent.

Do you use a long exposure or short exposure?

I tried a long exposure with no luck, then I thought a short exposure say 1/250 would be more appropriate to capture such bright flashes.

I am a bit lost and any help would be appreciated.

[Antsl]

Hi Paul,

The best way to capture lighting at night is to use a long exposure on a tripod. My advice is to experiment as it does depend on how much ambient light may be in your neighbourhood.... the plan though would be to make a test exposure at 400 ISO ... f 5.6 at say 10 seconds, check that the ambient (street lights etc) is not blowing out the exposure and then proceed to keep taking photos in the general direction of the last lightning flash. As soon as one exposure ends make another, that way the shutter is open most of the time and yet you will not be over exposing each frame ... get it! To increase the ambient component of the exposure, lengthen the shutter speed, to reduce it, shorten the exposure. If you want to brighten the overall exposure (ambient plus lightning), open aperture or increase ISO ... to decrease overall exposure close the aperture down and lower ISO.

Are you a member of the Bendigo Camera Club?

[sheepie]

There are a few good threads here looking at lightning - try a search and you should find them. I seem to remember a rather good shot late last year sometime from the mid-north coast (There are plenty more threads to look at - I am probably a little biased to the one I mention tho)

Certainly, a fast shutter speed is wasting valuable shutter usage - you have NO CHANCE If you're waiting for the strike before releasing the shutter, then you're already too late - unless it's a multiple strike in the same spot. Lightning is almost instantaneous - it's over as soon as it's begun. A lot of the 'length' in a lightning strike comes more from your eyes and the way we 'see' things than anything else.

[stormygirl]

Hi Paul,

I was out last night attempting to photograph it for the first time, but it was way too far away . The key is for it to be closer, but not too close that it's dangerous! I have a friend who was storm chasing and got struck while photographing.

I put my camera into manual focus and focused on a distant light source, the shutter was set to bulb and I used the remote varying exposure times from about 17 seconds to 45 seconds, and the apeture was set to f8. Basically, you need to open up the shutter, wait for a strike and then close it! It's all in the experimenting, and it does help if the lightning is quite frequent (strike every 1 - 2 seconds) All I got last night was pretty city lights in the distance, no lightning, but hopefully I will get another chance tonight (fingers crossed!)

Here is a few tips from a respected lightning photographer/storm chaser here in Australia (and he uses a D70!).

http://www.lightningphotography.com/tips.html

Experiment with different settings and exposure times. It is much easier to photograph lightning from a distance not when you are actually in the storm (much safer option too!). For me last night it was too far away, had it been closer I would have bagged some ripper shots! There is always tonight.......

[Pauld]

Thanks for all your advice.

I figured longer exposures were the way to go but I think the sky was not quite dark enough when I was taking the shots.

It bucketed down here last night along with a huge light show but I had to seek shelter which stopped me from getting any more photos.

Hopefully I will get another chance tonight.