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View Full Version : Got a little lightning

hotled
14th of August 2005 (Sun), 07:35
This was the first time I have ever tried to shoot lightning. It's not very good but I was at least a bit excited to finaly get a bolt that was exposed well enough to see.
Out of 36 shots 31 had lightning but only 4 had bolts.
Doutchie
14th of August 2005 (Sun), 08:40
Must have been an active storm! I have one lightning shot where I took around 200 and only good one bolt.
gramps
14th of August 2005 (Sun), 08:44
good shot.........it's not easy to catch. I have found that if you go with a time exp. you get better results.
hotled
14th of August 2005 (Sun), 08:58
good shot.........it's not easy to catch. I have found that if you go with a time exp. you get better results.

Ya thats what I did, I put my cheap 18-50 on there and I believe this one was at F4 30 sec. exposure.
Not sure how to even setup for lightning to where it doesn't just blow out the image yet lol.
gramps
14th of August 2005 (Sun), 09:04
your exposure sounds ok. I use a good tripid, remote release and shoot in RAW. The time exposure way only works good at night, a lot of our storms latley have been in the afernoon. When that happens I switch to small jpg and shoot around 1/60 to 1/100, hold the shutter button down and fire away. The other day I shot 2000+ shots during an afternoon storm, caught 1 keeper!!!!
Jim_T
14th of August 2005 (Sun), 17:51
I use a tripod and remote shutter release.. I put the camera in 'rapid fire mode' then set the exposure to 15-20 seconds.. I close down the aperture to get the ambient (no lighting) exposure correct.. When it's dark to fairly dark f/16 works OK.. If there is some daylight, then I increase the f/number until I get a decent exposure..

The neat part is using rapid fire mode at 20 seconds.. I lock the shutter release then go sit in a chair and watch. The camera starts shooting 20 second exposures back to back (3 per minute)... After several minutes, I stop the process, pull the cf card and download the files and keep the ones that have nice lightning :) If the storm is still flashing away, I plug the CF card back in and lock the remote release again..

Edit: Oh yes.. "Sunny" white balance gives lighting a nice blue 'elecric' look...

Here's on of mine...

http://www.pbase.com/image/18597052