Lightning?

[timmyquest]

This is one of 3 that i have gotten, the way that i've been doing this is 1-3 second exposers (depending on the surrounding light) and just hoping that a bolt catches my lens.

http://www.antiwall.com/photo/lightning.jpg

The bottom right is poor because of the quality of the picture...it was taken with a 35mm (getting a 10D soon)

[jasenh7]

Have fun with the lightning. Seems like about every three months someone is posting lightning pics. You'll find it's much easier and cheaper to get lightning pics once you go digital. I ran my G2 battery completely down taking pics and ended up throwing tons away. Check out my gallery at www.pbase.com/jasenh7 for my shots. Let me know if you have any questions.

[timmyquest]

Very nice...

A few questions yes.

I was watching something on Cable a long while ago, the guy lived in airzona or something. His strategy was to go way out form a storm and use a telophoto lens to zoom into the storm.

I used my widest angle lens for that shot, and as i said just opened the shutter for 2-3 seconds at a time.

What would you suggest?

[stopbath]

Very good picture. Could almost hear those cracks of thunder.

Although nice, I think the picture could stand some cropping. The bolt at the top is distracting, the straight shadow on the right leaning into the frame is distracting (it's not a tree) and the straggly branches on the top left could be excised as well.

[jasenh7]

Well, getting out in front of the storm is definately the key. If you can centralize the direction of your shots it's easier to get them rather than if they are all around you.

I was coming home from work and saw this storm in front of me, so I ran inside, grabbed my gear and headed out in front of the storm. I went to a local park about ten miles away so I was away from the city lights. Then I set my G2 to a 5 second shutter opening and began snapping. Good thing about digital is that I knew right away if I got nothing and could trash the picture.

Most of the shots though I'd hear the shutter close and bam, perfect bolt right in the middle of where the picture would have been. Either that or right before I pushed the trigger and just outside the field of view.

I did have one that I was sooooo excited about because it popped so close and bright....but alas...it was sooo overexposed I could do nothing with it.

The three bolts picture I enjoy because it's a neat effect to think that they popped at the same time but it was just a series of bolts over the five seconds.

I'm just waiting for another great storm like that one to come along and I'll have some more. Have fun with it though.

[timmyquest]

This picture actually already has been cropped alot. To me it's more of just a start and someday i hope that it'll only have sentimental meaning to me.

Getting in front of the storm...a logical thing to do heh.

As for your "just after the shutter snaps". I've found that every storm has a rythmic pattern with the lightning and its' best to just learn it before you start snapping.

This process i suspect will be easier with a digi...i cant wait.