Trying to photograph lightning..Help please!

[witchy]

I guess the title says most of it. We had a nice lightning display tonight, so I thought I would give it a go. I didn't do too well :(

OK I have googled and realised a couple of things I did wrong. Focus was a problem. I have since read about focusing to infinity. I think I understand this? I just focus manually on an object far away and then leave it there?

Can someone give me tips on other settings the camera should be on. ISO, I gather should have been 100..I went much higher and my pictures are all grainy.

I am confused about the best lens to use. I grabbed my telescopic lens..Maybe I should have used the standard lens that came with camera (18-55)

I have a Canon 300D, I did use a tripod.

Anyway, this was the best that I got and I didn't get the lightning, just the clouds lighting up. Any tips for next time would be greatly appreciated :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v615/witchy1/lightning-1_resized.jpg

F9.0, ISO 1600, 1/1, exposure 2 sec

[Hellashot]

You're probably going to need a longer exposure even though I've never tried to do lightning.

[witchy]

Exposure is one of the things that I was unsure of. I tried a few but all my pics came out crap. I read tonight about "bulb" setting. Should I have used that?

[awagner]

Bulb can be one way of approching it. That eay you let the lens open and when a lighting strikes you can close it and there you caught it. After its a question of experimentation with f-stops to produce the right amount of light in the overall picture; depends too an the amount of strikes over time.

[jboyd]

I was looking for info once to photograph the Northern Lights. I googled it. Try gooling "lightning photography." You will learn a lot!

[skade]

Hey witchy, wasnt the lightning great last night! I also tried to get shots but they all look the same as yours lol I tried a few different settings, with no success.

[musthavemuzk]

seems that shot is a winner to me.

love the drama created by the backlit clouds.

Monty

[witchy]

skade, Yes we had a great show..I just wish that I got some actual lightning, I could see it forking everywhere across the sky but no luck...Did you see the water tornado on the news?...I would love to have seen that in person :)

Thankyou Monty, I took heaps of photos and scrapped nearly the lot. Most of my shots were either very dark, blurry or the sky didn't look like night time. I will play more next time and hopefully do better.

[skade]

skade, Yes we had a great show..I just wish that I got some actual lightning, I could see it forking everywhere across the sky but no luck...Did you see the water tornado on the news?...I would love to have seen that in person

No I didnt see the news.. I rarely see T.V lol I bet that was awesome! I would have loved to have seen that!! What area was the water tornado in ? I could just picture us out there trying to get shots of it lmao

[PhotosGuy]

I just focus manually on an object far away and then leave it there? Yes. You should be at a small f-stop, so DOF won't be a problem. Shoot wide angle 'cause you don't know just were the lightening will occur. This is a composite I went overboard with:;)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/PhotosGuy/Samples%20-%20General/Lightningtornado.jpg

[witchy]

No I didnt see the news.. I rarely see T.V lol I bet that was awesome! I would have loved to have seen that!! What area was the water tornado in ? I could just picture us out there trying to get shots of it lmao

They didn't say exactly, but someone from City Beach caught it on his mobile phone LOL, and didn't do a bad job. Also a camera man got some footage of it.

PhotosGuy, I love that pic! and thanks for the tips :)

[Screamer]

I would concur that a small aperture and long exposure is the key...I took this one a couple of years ago, and unfortunately don't remember the specifics. I do remember using a small aperture probably f11 or smaller and mostlikely a 15-30 second exposure. A lot of it is just shooting until you get something since you don't know where it will "hit". However you can guess, as the lightning will alternate from one side of the storm to the other...ex. North side of front, then South side, etc...makes guessing easier. This is a by product of the ions chargning and releasing in the clouds.

http://www.pmacino.com/lightning.jpg

[PhotosGuy]

I'm glad you liked it, witchy. Sometimes I just don't know when to quit... so I don't! ;-)

[musthavemuzk]

mayb i need to read up on this as we had some stormy weather a couple weeks back, but i just shot the before clouds. liked the way they turned out, but lightening would have been cool as well.

Monty