Night/Storm/Lightning Photos

[idontknow97]

Question while playing around with the water competition this week I heard rain starting and I went outside and I liked the way that the rain was comming off the roof but was having trouble getting the shot. the flash on was just not right I tried with the flash off and just the street light in the back but that didnt work either even tried a porch light just nothing working like I wanted it then there was a flash of lightning and I just couldnt get the camera to operate the way I wanted it to, I am still learning and this is not what I normally photograph so just wondering for fun if anyone has any tips or tricks to get these kind of dark late night shots or any ideas of good settings that work well in this situation thanks.

[Cypher]

Hey there do you have a tripod ?? The less light there is available the longer your exposure is going to have to be. Also what kind of lens where you using ?? When I do night shots I usually mount my camera on a tripod and will slow down to anywhere between 1 sec to 15 sec. Best of luck!

[idontknow97]

I have a tripod I am borrowing for the time being and I figured the exposure/shutter speed might need to be longer but I guess I wasnt getting the right affect and considering lightning is split second its hard to set an exposure and just guess at when your going to catch it. I have two lenses the 18-55mm and 75-300mm at the time I was using the 18-55mm one.

[Murtasma]

Aperture selection and ISO determine how bright the lighting will be in your image, shutter will control how "lucky" you have to be to capture the lightning. Lightning is very similar to the flash of a strobe, it happens instantly (about 30 microseconds) so the shutter really has no effect on the lighting. The shutter needs to be open for that instant the lighting happens but it won't actually control how bright the flash is since it happens so quickly. You also have to take into account your surrounding environment and what's important in the image to you.

Take for example a few storms that passed by in the area recently and the different techniques I used to capture them and the reasoning behind them.


Exposure 0.5
Aperture f/4.5
Focal Length 33 mm
ISO Speed 200

This was a major storm, lighting strikes every few seconds. I choose to do a very short exposure (1/2 a second) because there was so much heat lighting, also the street lights would get blown out quickly if I choose to run a longer exposure. Mostly I had to do a short exposure because anything longer then a few seconds would result in a white sky because of the amount of heat lighting. I noticed during this storm there would be periods of of very intense heat lighting (sky flashing white) then a brief period of darkness then BANG a bolt would make contact with the ground. When the heat lighting ended I opened the shutter for 1/2 a second at F4.5 at ISO 200 (after some experimentation).




Exposure 5
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 17 mm
ISO Speed 200
This was a much more docile storm, there was no heat lighting but it was sunset so the sky was somewhat bright or I would have opted for a longer shutter time. I decided to use a longer exposure since there was less lighting (5 seconds) I mostly decided to exposure for the sky at F11 ISO 200 since I didn't want to use a smaller aperture (resulting in diffraction and lack of sharpness in the image). If it was pitch black out I would have increased my shutter speed to something like 15 - 30 seconds and used my aperture and ISO to compensate for the longer shutter speed.

As you can see there are several ways to skin a cat. You have to decide what's important in the image, watch the storm close and base your decisions on exposure around this. It's possible to capture lighting with fast shutter speeds such as 1/2 a second or faster but you must be good at predicting strikes more so then longer shutter speeds. Sometimes you must use a faster shutter speed if theres lots of lighting or you have stuff in your frame that will be blown out with longer shutter speeds regardless of your Aperture and ISO selection.

Best of luck!

[tasmo2]

lightning photography is actually REALLY easy! All you need is the guts (or stupidity?) to be one of those people headed outside when everyone else is going for cover! LOL! You have to judge your aperture by how long you are going to keep your shutter open, is there rapid lighting? or like pp said, lots of heat lightning? even street lights will cause too much light! Its easy to blow out your lightning if you keep your shutter open too long with a low fstop. Here are a few examples that I have done recently:
This one was taken near the end of a storm, I knew that my shutter would be open for between 15-25 seconds (25 is usually my max). So I put my apt on f18. I don't bump my iso over 200 because I haven't gotten great results with that, you may be different.


Exposure 13.7
Aperture f/18.0
Focal Length 18 mm
ISO Speed 200

This one was also a smaller apt even though my exposures were super short (1-3 seconds for most from this storm) But the lightning was REALLY bright, so I didn't want to blow it out. You will know if your lightning is extra bright because the whole sky will light up like daytime! LOL!



Exposure 1.1
Aperture f/16.0
Focal Length 18 mm
ISO Speed 200


This is an example of blowing your photo out because of your apt not matching your environment and shutter speed!
The lightning was MEGA bright this night, and when you factor in that I left my shutter open for almost 15 seconds with an apt of 10.... It just didn't work! So when you learn the rules (ss,apt,environment) and you factor those in its a breeze!


Exposure 14.8
Aperture f/10.0
Focal Length 18.3 mm
ISO Speed 200

So I know this was long but just remember these points:
BEFORE SHOOTING
1. have a sturdy tripod... if yours isn't, hang a bag of sand or rocks from the middle to sturdy it.
2. Camera settings: Manually Focus for the horizon if you can... if you can't find the farthest thing from you and put that in focus. Set to blub setting. if you have a remote (which is best) make sure your set to shoot with remote)
3. always check your environment, street lights, porch lights, car lights, they will all blow out easily!
4. count how long in between a few strikes, this will help you know what your ss will be and in turn your apt. Long SS = Higher f stops (like 18)

START SHOOTING
1. Open your shutter and wait for the lightning! If you get to about 20 seconds with out one, close the shutter and start again. When you see the lightning, wait one second, then close your shutter.
2. Always check after your first strike caught to make sure your results are what you wanted. (check your focus! I hate when I get that wrong!)
3. Enjoy the show, but DO NOT get caught up in it! Its easy to do, but if you find the lightning is too close go inside. (I actually shoot hanging out a window in this case, though I know its not much safer. LOL
4. Check periodically.. but do not check after every single shot because you WILL miss a great one while your peaking!


Hope this helps!!

ETA: I am putting this in the how to section also as this question seems to get asked A LOT! LOL!

[idontknow97]

thank you all next time we have a storm I am going to try some of these and yes the other night when I was out it was pitch black also I am not sure I am doing the longer exposure or ss correct because the other day I even tried it at the beach of the water no flash and flash and with way the long exposure gave me the white blob or whitness you were talking about it the one photo above (blown out look) thanks all