A few lightning pics from last week

[JordanP]

Hi all,

Had my first 'crack' (pun intended) at lightning pics last week.

According to Raydar, our resident storm expert, this is a rare form of lightning called Ground to Cloud. As I watched and photographed it I noticed a major bolt come down and then a network of striks branch out from the top of the strike, accross the underside of the clouds.

Anyway, have a look. All feedback welcome (especially if anyone can tell my why the colours go the way they do). Only PP work was slight levels and croping.

http://www.pixspot.com/thumbnails.php?album=188

[xerubus]

that third shot is spectacular... i am very impressed... well done.

[Glen]

Craig also like the third, well caught

[sirhc55]

Craig I think all three are fantastic - well done even tho’ you were naughty

[Onyx]

'The beauty' certainly lives up to its name.

[gooseberry]

Awesome pics mate... thanks for posting.

[Killakoala]

WOW!!!!

Truly sensational lightning pics mate.

It almost looks like a tree made of plasma and electrons.

The colours are great too. Especially in that first image.

The bolts almost look like they have intelligence.

[sheepie]

Impressive Again, I think I like the third best, although all three are really good captures - well done.

I think it's about time Gary gave us a Lightning category!

The D70 certainly does this subject justice eh

[BBJ]

Craig, Mate they are bloody magic, I can only hope when i get the chance they come up 1/2 as good as yours have for a first try.
Well done.
Cheers
John

[Link]

Awesome shots, I'd be very interested to know how you did it; ie, did you see the lightenings in the viewfinder before pressing the shutter?

The brightness of the colours remains a mystery to me, especially on the left of the first frame, at the level of the horizon line (it looks very bright, maybe a lightening hit the earth just outside the frame).

Link.

[kurokaze204]

My son and I set up the D70 in his bedroom and I gave a camera lesson to sooth the storm fears that night. I think it would have been a lot more effective if I had caught some shots like this.

I ended up catching one measly little tail. Had shutter between 4 and 20 seconds, but everytime the shutter closed the lightning would flash. It got so crazy my son started laughing at me every time I missed one Oh the shame!

Great shots mate. At least I know I had the camera setup roughly right.

[Nicole]

I also like all three shots. They are all great!

Keep the lightning shots coming!

[JordanP]

Thanks all for the kind words. I think the distinct advantage in these images was the lightning on the night. It was very hard to get it wrong. Lots of spectacular strikes and a great vantage point 200m down the road from my house.

Awesome shots, I'd be very interested to know how you did it; ie, did you see the lightenings in the viewfinder before pressing the shutter?

The brightness of the colours remains a mystery to me, especially on the left of the first frame, at the level of the horizon line (it looks very bright, maybe a lightening hit the earth just outside the frame).

Link.

Link,
You guessed it.
The brightness on the left of the first frame was from another strike that I cropped out of the shot. Why it threw orange light while the main strike has purple totally beats me. Here is the strike here....not cropped out.....


In terms of how I got the shots, settings etc. The first shot f5 and the 2nd and 3rd f7.1. I noticed that with decent (bright) strikes a range between f5 and f8 returned good results. As for the shutter speed I had the camera set to bulb and kept the shutter open until there was a decent strike. As an indication of how frequent we were getting good strikes the first shot was 8.2sec, second shot 1.7sec and third shot 4.9sec.

didn't use a tripod (for no good reason - just too lazy and had to manage squals of rain now and again) so to improvise I took padding and used jumpers on the wound down window of my car to stabilise when using bulb. I did catch the second strike after I first saw it hit, but my reflexes were too slow to pull that off more than once.

I only used the viewfinder to compose the horizon and take note of where the edges of the frames were on the landscape. This was so I could get into a better position to stabilise the camera and see what was going on.

A little improvisation, the advantage of imediate feedback (review of images) thanks to the D70 - and one heck of a good light show that made it hard to miss.

Cheers,

[Neeper]

Wow great pics!! I love them all.

[pippin88]

Very nice shots.

I need to find a good spot to sit out and have a go next storm.

[mudder]

Wow, that is awesome! The colors are captivating...

Cheers,
Mudder

[kipper]

I need one of those remotes I think.

[MHD]

amazing stuff! 1st one gets my vote! Great!

[mic]

Great ! Great ! Great !

What more can one say but, Great !

Well done

Mic

[jethro]

my better half says im a maniac when i shoot lightning. she freaks, but you would be very unlucky to get hit under cover of my balcony. its a great feeling when the sky arcs up not far away. these pics you took are fantastic. radar will be jealous i dont think hes had much action this week.

[rokkstar]

Simply beautiful