Thunder & Lightning

[Sherman]

This night we had a big thunder with nice flash. I was wondering about how to shot these flash.

Have anyone tried this ? (some samples?)
What about the G1 settings ?

Regards
Sherman

[polak187]

When you shoot thunderstorms with 35mm camera you can do it two ways. Either set the camera to bulb and cover the lens with something dark (my hat). Than when you see a thunder/lighting remove the cover. That's one way to do it. Also you can create multiple eposures like that. This scenario also works for fireworks. But this is imposible with G1 due to lack of the bulb function.

Another way of shooting is setting your camera to maximum shutter speed and leaving it on the tripod. Than you snap pictures one after another. Since pictures are free you don't worry about wasting film and finaly you will capture the lighting. If you lucky you may even get a dual or triple one too. This is the way I shoot. Usually with 400 ASA setting you may want to go to 8 sec exposure and 2.8/2.5 aperture.

http://fsheep.tripod.com/photo/images/moab.jpg

Pros are using photo cells that detect strong flash which triggers the camera.

[polak187]

Just found out that my site host does not support downloads (paranoia ?).

Here's the page that will have that image:
http://fsheep.tripod.com/photo/pages/moab.html

[Inactive Member 18]

Lightning usually flashes at fairly regular intervals in large thunderstorms, so you can time a few flashes to improve your chances of having the shutter open when the flash occurs. When I used to shoot lightning at night in Utah and Arizona with my old Canon FTb and Kodachrome 25, I used an f-stop of 5.6 and bulb settings. You will probably have to experiment with f-stops, depending on the size of the strikes.

I've had some really interesting close calls trying to get lightning shots, and I'm sure others have too.

Mark

[TulsaRod]

Hi,
I got very lucky one night. Driving home I saw the storm comming in. I figgured it was now or never, so I stopped at a water reservoir just south of my house, attached my G1 to a mini tripod, and ran up on top of the earth dam around the reservoir.

I set the camera for 8 seconds exposure, f8 aperture. It was really dark so it was hard to tell how much you were zoomed in, so I zoomed full out, then bumped it back in a little.

I took shots as fast as the camera would let me, one after another. Out of about 15 shots, I got 3 nice ones.

I didn't have time to look on the lcd as I was taking them. With one hand I was shielding the lens from a light sprinkle of rain, and was working the camera with the other. When the lightning was getting a little too close, I grabbed the camera and headed back. The storm let loose really hard just as I got back to my truck, so I got outa there fast lol.

As I was driving home in the now VERY bad storm, I was prayin that I had got something, but I didn't know untill I got home. I was extreemly pleased with the results.

I posted the pics on my page, and I hope you enjoy them.

See ya
http://members.home.net/r2k20155/page1d.HTML

[Ahto Tanner]

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