Question about taking pictures of lightning

[MOmilkman]

Ive been researching the lightning thread
How to Capture lightning, A mini how to.
and I think I have all the settings correct, but one thing I don't understand is how to focus.

We had some heat lightning tonight so I was able to expeirment with the settings a little before we get a real lightning show.
Of course I had to switch the lens over from AF to MF, but I don't know how to get it in focus.
When I look through the viewfinder and try to focus there is nothing to focus on so I just have to "guess" and of course it's never right. All the heat flashes I took were severely out of focus.

Any recommendations on what I should do?

Thanks

[Jim Bryant]

The easiest way to do this is at night. You should scout out a suitable area ahead of time that has an un-obstructed view of the north-west sky, (since most storms track from that direction). Watch the weather radar reports, and whenever a potential thunderstorm is tracking in your direction after dark, high-tail it out to the spot you've selected and get everything set up BEFORE the storm arrives.

Mount your camera onto a sturdy tripod, and point the lens in the direction the activity is most likely to occur. Lens choice will depend upon how big you want the lightning bolt to appear. A medium telephoto will record a larger bolt, but the area of sky coverage will be more limited than with a standard lens or a medium wide-angle.

ISO 100 and a aperture of f-5.6 will record the sharpest images. With the camera set to "bulb", use a locking cable release to lock the shutter open. At night, the shutter can remain open indefinitely and the only exposure will be from the lightning. If you're real lucky, a bolt will flash within your compositional frame. You can then advance to the next frame and repeat the process, or leave the shutter open to try for multiple strikes on the same frame.

This technique requires perfect timing and a lot of luck, so plan on quite a few dead frames. If you have several cameras, you can increase your chances for success. Oh yeah ... and try not to get zapped!

[bradzo66]

Jim's advice is as always simply spot on but I will add jst a small thing , and believe me there may be no technical reason as to why this worked for me but it did , I had no time to scope out position b4 hand so was stuck in the middle of nowhere with the best lightning of the year heading straight at me, as you already mentioned you need to change to manual focus to get the camera to focus , I let it try to focusautomatically when it stops trying i switch to manual and open up . I have found these to be the best shots of lightning I have captured , my first attempts with me trying to manually focus were as you said terribly OOF . As I say there is most likely no raeson why this worked but in a pinch it was certainly better than coming home with blur . All the best

[MOmilkman]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Jim,
Your saying to open up the aperture to 5.6. The instructions I read (the link I provided in my first post on the lightning tutorial) said to close the aperture to f11-16.
Is opening the aperture somehow going to allow me to focus easier?
Keep in mind it is pitch dark where I'm setting up my camera so there is nothing for it to focus on.

Brad, I understand exactly what your saying but somehow I don't feel like I would be lucky enough for that to happen to me. ha ha But I will sure give it a try if nothing else works! Thanks

[bradzo66]

Yeah its more a last resort than a tried and proven method , but its better than missing "the shot " All the best

[Jim Bryant]

Yea, there's always different ways of doing things. I always try to go for lower f-stop and for more brighter lighting. To me, I'd rather overexpose the photo a tad instead of under-exposing it. You can always fix an overexposed photo in PP, but not so much an underexposed one.