Lightning Photography

[ttgutsglory03]

Hey, I love thunderstorms, and love going out to watch them. I took my Pentax k-x out tonight as some storms rolled through, but didn't get many good shots (the included picture is my best one, cropped). Does anyone have any tips or hints for storm photography?

[PotatoEYE]

1. Have a decent sturdy tripod with you
2. Rain cover for yourself and camera if you're close to the storm
3. Use bulb mode and keep the shutter release at hand, shoot long exposures
meter for the background first, note the settings, apply them to your manual mode
4. Wait for bolts of lightning with your shutter open. always inspect results after first captured bolt to see if you need to change exposure settings
5. Don't go in the way of the storm, try to catch it on a side or moving away, unless you have a car nearby that you can jump into
6. Try to avoid using umbrella in the storm

[ML Photography]

Originally Posted by PotatoEYE

1. Have a decent sturdy tripod with you
2. Rain cover for yourself and camera if you're close to the storm
3. Use bulb mode and keep the shutter release at hand, shoot long exposures
meter for the background first, note the settings, apply them to your manual mode
4. Wait for bolts of lightning with your shutter open. always inspect results after first captured bolt to see if you need to change exposure settings
5. Don't go in the way of the storm, try to catch it on a side or moving away, unless you have a car nearby that you can jump into
6. Try to avoid using umbrella in the storm

I would add that during your long exposures you can use a card to cover the lens thus preventing the frame to become too bright. As soon as you see the lighting remove the card, but beware of not moving the camera...

I hope this helps!

[56countrygirl]

Cool pic. I was out the other day and did not have any success. NO patience I think.

[tasmo2]

I got a few tonight that are posted in the OTHER SYS.. guess I didn't think to put it here. LOL
I think you got some great advice, the only thing I can add is practice practice practice! The ones I got tonight were my second try.. hopefully one day I will get it perfect!

[wildbird]

For lightning pics, be where there is lightning! Best if away from other lightsources that will burn out the pic if left on too long exposure, however can be hard to focus with nothing to see. Have spare batteries is a good idea. Have a cover for camera if it gets wet. Make sure you use manual focus otherwise it may go out of focus and you will have blurred shots (has happened to me before). A good item to have is an intervalometer. This means you can set and forget basically once you have it focussed etc. Should be set to take something like say 20 sec exposures every 20 seconds - depending on available light and intensity of storm. Large memory cards also help!

[BWphotos]

Use "wildbird" techniques, long exposure, manual focus plus and the most important thing - tripod.

[wildbird]

If there is alot of lightning, check a few frames to make sure focus is correct, and also nothing else that you didnt want in the frame is in there. I had a lot of frames of lightning, then after I finished I discovered I had gotten the corner of a sign in most of them.... And tripods, get best you can afford, some cheaper ones will wobble a bit, especially if it is windy (after all, you are photographing a storm!), so set it low as possible to lower centre of gravity.

[ziplock122949]

Nice capture of the lightning. One key feature to always keep in mind is composition. If the image is not interesting and keeps the attention (besides the lightning), it will fall really fast.

[ravncat]

Originally Posted by ziplock122949

Nice capture of the lightning. One key feature to always keep in mind is composition. If the image is not interesting and keeps the attention (besides the lightning), it will fall really fast.

Absolutely. - And if you are working with lightning and it looks like you're gonna get a good amount of lightning - set up your composition and figure out where you want the lightning to strike - if there's enough lightning there's a good chance you'll get a strike reasonably close to where you want it - be patient and let the lightning fill your shot as you like - doesn't always work - but when it does...