Lighting Bugs

[mshockley]

Hello everyone, I'm just in from attempting to capture some lightning bugs---with my camera, not in a jar.

I was not successful. It is so very beautiful where I was set up, looking out over the cornfield with just thousands of them lighting up. Got all set up, tripod ready, remote cable in hand, tried many different settings and came away with nothing even close to what I was seeing

So hit me with your ideas as I would really like to give this another try.

Thanks!

[Bruce A]

Sounds like a really tough one Michelle. Was it dark or semi dark? Were the bugs all around and close or at a distance? Although it may not allow to capture images of individual bugs, did you use long exposures and what did you set your exposure for - meaning something dark in the scene or something lighter etc? It's a bit difficult not knowing the setting and I'm just throwing out some (inexperienced) suggestions since I've never tried anything remotely like this.

[mshockley]

Bruce it was semi-dark when I started the process to full dark by the time I quit. The little guys were eveywhere.....tons of them, out over the field. I was using my 85mm prime and was just focused out on the field to fill the frame. I tried many, many different settings. At semi-dark and f/22 a 30 second exposure made the corn just visible, about what i wanted, but no beautiful flickers of light. When I opened the lens up things just got worse.

My theory...lol....was to stop the lens down pretty far and have a very long exposure so that there would be many, many flickers of light caught by the sensor....

I've been thinking that since they are moving and they keep flicking on and off that it may be impossible to get them like how we see them with our eyes.

[Izzy]

I was going to try this myself. I had this idea that there would be crazy green steaks all over the field. Well you saved me the time. Lets see where this goes, maybe someone has a solution?

[dlambert]

I tried this last summer with very little joy. Sounds like a fun challenge, though. In the past, I'm pretty sure I kept my ISO low in an attempt to keep noise under control, but I think it I were going to try it again, I'd boost ISO to at least 800 to try to get a better exposure. Unlike lightning, the bugs just might be slow enough for you to catch with the remote shutter when you see a flicker.

Sure sounds like a great way to spend an evening!

[BryanC]

Wow...my wife and I just got back from my first attempt at this. I started the same way that you did, but I wasn't picking any of them up. I sort of figured that they just didn't give off enough light, so I kept bumping my ISO up and opening my aperture. At 1600 and between f/5.6 and f/8 is when they started showing up. With the ISO up and the aperture open, 20-30 second exposures, it was making the scene almost daylight looking but the lightning bugs were showing up, too. We were in a pretty dark area, a restored prairie, and there were millions of them...those strobe like ones. I haven't uploaded to my computer yet, but I'll post one as soon as I can...didn't get any great ones, but it will give you an idea of what I did my first attempt. Thunderstorms headed our way, too...so it's probably back out for some lightning!

[mshockley]

Thanks Bryan, your response makes sense to me, as when I opened my lens up it did create an image that appeared to be far more light than what I actually had, and I didn't like it, so I went back the other direction.

I will have to try again and play around with a much more open lens and bump up the ISO some more to see if any start to show up.

Please do post your results! I would love to see them.

I wonder how long they stick around....lol....I might need some time with this one!

[BryanC]

Ok, crappier than I thought...lol...but here's one.



Exposure 39 seconds
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 55 mm
ISO Speed 1600

There's some hot pixels mixed in the image, but most are of the lightning bugs. Weird flare in the upper corners, too. I do notice that only the ones that were closer are showing up. Those trees in the background were just on fire with them. Not a great picture, posted only for learning purposes......I really don't know if a photo will do justice to the experience of being there with all of those flashes, probably 100 times more than what showed up on camera. I'm open to ideas and suggestions, though.

[faeriegodess612]

I miss lightning bugs. I have yet to see one lightning bug here in the devil's ass crack. ( Otherwise known as Central Texas. )

[SwissJon]

A quick google search tells me that you're not alone in your problems, they seem to be virtually impossible to photograph.

The only really successful ones I've seen are either faked, or close ups of an individual bug: