LIGHTNING PHOTOS

[strykapose]

Thank you also CapturingLight,

Hi Sam.
Some excellent shots that you linked to.
If you want to post from Flickr you use the curved arrow on the right below the image, select BBCode, set the size, (I think the forum limit is 800 wide) select all and copy the line of text, paste to page on forum.
This is the method I use, I have no idea about the other methods. Hope this helps.

Cheers, Graham.

Here is a form discussion I found very helpful
http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=18464.msg344634#msg344634

 

[strykapose]

here is an attempt to post up a shot here;

Lightning Strikes World Trade Center 7/15/2014 # 6 of 6 by Sam Yee, on Flickr

 

[strykapose]

Here is a simultaneous lightning strike of 1WTC and ESB

Lightning Strikes World Trade Center and Empire State Building Simultaneously 7/2/2014 # 2 of 17 by Sam Yee, on Flickr

 

[Dylan777]

Guilin, China. It feels that way

http://dylannguyen.smugmug.com/photos/i-HZHrGHm/0/O/i-HZHrGHm.jpg

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi strykapose.
It seems you have sussed out how to post now, great shots.

Cheers, Graham.

Here is a simultaneous lightning strike of 1WTC and ESB

 

[Click]

Iso 320 F11 30 sec

Very nice shot, agierke.

 

[Click]

here is an attempt to post up a shot here;

Beautiful. Well done strykapose.

 

[Click]

Here is a simultaneous lightning strike of 1WTC and ESB

Great shot, strykapose. Nicely done

 

[strykapose]

Thank you Graham for the tip,
I wasn't sure which to use, now I see there is a preview prior to posting to see what it looks like.
Thanks once again.
Sam

Hi strykapose.
It seems you have sussed out how to post now, great shots.

Cheers, Graham.

Here is a simultaneous lightning strike of 1WTC and ESB

 

[strykapose]

Here is a simultaneous lightning strike of 1WTC and ESB

Great shot, strykapose. Nicely done

Thank you Click

here is an attempt to post up a shot here;

Beautiful. Well done strykapose.

here is an attempt to post up a shot here;

Beautiful. Well done strykapose.

 

[rfdesigner]

We had a pretty good storm roll though this weekend while I was at the cabin so I decided to try out Magic Lantern's exposure trigger. This was my 1st attempt at lightning photography I was happy enough with the result. Not as spectacular as some of the shots here, I will have to work on getting a better location. My 1st thought was to use manual mode and control the exposure of the scene myself but I quickly realized that was misguided as I was triggering the shutter when the exposure changed with the lightning strike. Switching to Av left me feeling like what kind of exposure I got in the scene was somewhat out of my control. Do most just deal with this in post or is there a trick I am missing.

I used manual mode: f/16 ISO 800 and 5 seconds expsures, taken in "High speed shutter" mode, then kept firing. >50% of shots caught some kind of flash, mostly sheet lightning and those with more than one just overexposed, it was quite a storm.

If I were to do it again, I think I'd go for f8 ISO 200 to minimise noise, at least at f/16 I didn't have to worry about focussing. Of course foreground also makes a difference, I don't have streetlights to contend with.

Note I used a monopod as I realised the lighting wouldn't blur due to camera shake, however if you've got a foreground or something terrestial lit you'd need a tripod.

That is a great bolt that you managed to capture the picture has nice colour to it as well. The long exposure is interesting thought. I don't know if a 5 second exposure is needed when using the ML or other trigger but I am wondering if something on the order of 1-2 seconds would capture more branches of the bolt than I got. Both my photos above ended up at ISO 800 f5.0 1/125 s crop sensor. As you mention I am not quite sure how to deal with a more lighted scene such as a streetlamp and balance the lightning with the foreground exposure. I think one of the earlier posts may have been a HDR shot which is one solution I suppose, but my experience with that is very limited.

I think you might need the long exposure.. or lots of them, and some luck.

The reason is the way lighting works..

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/lightning2.html

You could be picking up only one of the later pulses and missing the main show by using a trigger, I would expect the air to become more conductive once the first pulse has occurred, so the faint side shoots would tend to die away, long shots will get all the bolts and the "feelers" that don't complete. I tried much longer exposures but lost one or two bolts to massive sheet lighting comming along and bleaching out the whole shot, so I think something in the order of 5 seconds feels about right.. perhaps in a less intense storm 10 seconds would be better.


Some other very nice shots being put up as well... thanks to all for sharing.

 

[agierke]

lightning in effect has a built in shutter speed much like a speedlight has. though it pulses, it is still a pretty short duration so considerations for exposure should be more about aperture and ISO.

thats why i use 30 secs for lightning shots and i dial in the aperture and ISO to suit the surrounding scene. if your ISO is too high or your aperture too wide open a lightning strike can overexpose the scene. longer shutter speeds only mean more of an opportunity to catch a strike (or multiple strikes) in each frame.

 

[CapturingLight]

We had a pretty good storm roll though this weekend while I was at the cabin so I decided to try out Magic Lantern's exposure trigger. This was my 1st attempt at lightning photography I was happy enough with the result. Not as spectacular as some of the shots here, I will have to work on getting a better location. My 1st thought was to use manual mode and control the exposure of the scene myself but I quickly realized that was misguided as I was triggering the shutter when the exposure changed with the lightning strike. Switching to Av left me feeling like what kind of exposure I got in the scene was somewhat out of my control. Do most just deal with this in post or is there a trick I am missing.

I used manual mode: f/16 ISO 800 and 5 seconds expsures, taken in "High speed shutter" mode, then kept firing. >50% of shots caught some kind of flash, mostly sheet lightning and those with more than one just overexposed, it was quite a storm.

If I were to do it again, I think I'd go for f8 ISO 200 to minimise noise, at least at f/16 I didn't have to worry about focussing. Of course foreground also makes a difference, I don't have streetlights to contend with.

Note I used a monopod as I realised the lighting wouldn't blur due to camera shake, however if you've got a foreground or something terrestial lit you'd need a tripod.

That is a great bolt that you managed to capture the picture has nice colour to it as well. The long exposure is interesting thought. I don't know if a 5 second exposure is needed when using the ML or other trigger but I am wondering if something on the order of 1-2 seconds would capture more branches of the bolt than I got. Both my photos above ended up at ISO 800 f5.0 1/125 s crop sensor. As you mention I am not quite sure how to deal with a more lighted scene such as a streetlamp and balance the lightning with the foreground exposure. I think one of the earlier posts may have been a HDR shot which is one solution I suppose, but my experience with that is very limited.

I think you might need the long exposure.. or lots of them, and some luck.

The reason is the way lighting works..

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/lightning2.html

You could be picking up only one of the later pulses and missing the main show by using a trigger, I would expect the air to become more conductive once the first pulse has occurred, so the faint side shoots would tend to die away, long shots will get all the bolts and the "feelers" that don't complete. I tried much longer exposures but lost one or two bolts to massive sheet lighting comming along and bleaching out the whole shot, so I think something in the order of 5 seconds feels about right.. perhaps in a less intense storm 10 seconds would be better.


Some other very nice shots being put up as well... thanks to all for sharing.

rfdesigner,
That is a super awesome link you found, it gives a much better understanding of the beast we look to capture. It is a little depressing though as I found magic lantern to be a rather efficient method with the capture rate being pretty good. It gives ok results but of course none of us are here to produce just ok images. Magic Lanterns user guide says detection takes about 200 and 300 ms which given the reference material surprises me that I got such good results. Not all is lost for ML and lightning though at least it gives me a Intervalometer. I do notice most here are using longer exposures even up to 30 seconds or so. I now find myself in the unusual position of hoping for rain to experiment some more.
Thanks so much for the feedback the knowledge here never fails to impress.

 

[davidcl0nel]

....

This were the results of the last years.

For this year until now I got this:

Power by David, on Flickr

 

[azhelishot]

Here is a pic from this season Monsoon in Arizona...many good lightning photo ops every year.

 

[JMZawodny]

Every so often lightning goes up!

 

[Claire]

Here are three photos I shot on two consecutive days in July 2015 at the Grand Canyon while a great monsoon was in action. I used a 24-70mm lens and Stepping Stone's Lightning Trigger IV.

 

[brad-man]

Magnificent photos Claire. Welcome to CR!

 

[Click]

Here are three photos I shot on two consecutive days in July 2015 at the Grand Canyon while a great monsoon was in action. I used a 24-70mm lens and Stepping Stone's Lightning Trigger IV.

Stunning pictures. Welcome to CR

 

[Click]

Every so often lightning goes up!

Great shots. Nicely done.