Taking photos of Lightning

[Blackee]

Many thanks to Brad (Hamlan) who posted this in the New Years Breaking weather thread.

The link to Michael Baths guide that Rivergirl has posted is definately worth looking at. I have met Michael (albeit briefly) and know via a mutual stormchasing friend Jimmy that he is an excellent lightning photographer. Personally I've been shooting lightning for 4 years but am still learning and make mistakes so i recommend Michaels guidance which I have followed up to now. Here are some basic tips off the top of my head:

- usually (but not always) you will get best results with an SLR camera due to their larger sensors, high resolution and low noise (amongst other features) compared to compacts - I use a Canon 50D 15MP SLR.
- use a camera that has manual settings and long exposure capabilities (ideally with bulb function to allow you to control the length of the exposure of each pic)
- shoot with ISO 100
- use a sturdy tripod and if possible use a shutter release cable or remote so you dont move the camera each time you press the shutter button
- focus on infinity and turn off autofocus so the lens doesnt constantly search for focus in the dark
- begin with an aperture and exposure time that matches the intensity of the bolts occuring and the ambient light at the time. If you allow too much light in (large aperture) when a bolt occurs it can 'blow out' or overexpose the shot and you will get no detail in the pic but if you close up the aperture too much you run the risk of missing low intensity bolts altogether.
- if you use a wide angle lens, you can maximise your chances of getting a bolt in the shot but you run the risk of the bolt looking tiny due to the wide angle distortion. Otherwise you can use a longer lens and focus on an area of activity and hope to get a great bolt close up - but you run the risk of missing many that are just wider than the angle of the lens!!!! I tend to use a long lens and run the risk hoping to get a great shot and then I swith to a wide angle lense when the action gets close or if there are anvil crawlers that stretch over a wide angle.

Lightning photography is a challenge and things such as the nature of the lightning, how close, how often and how bright the bolts are, cloud, rain, dust can all impact how bright the bolts are and you have to be ready to adjust your settings to suit the changing nature of the storm. And, then of course there is the nack of pointing the camera in the right direction to start with!

[rikjpool]

This is a great link, and the very same one I myself have used and followed for all my shots. I thought I saw this in that thread, and thanks Sniper for posting it up in here.

[AmaroK]

Great tips here. Many of these things are available on even entry level cameras now (as i discovered on my little canon ixus 80is last night)

Just out of interest, what is the gap most people like to keep the aperture open for? im not huge on all the terminology at the moment, but i found for the conditions i have been shooting in, that 6" at iso 100 seems to be the best bet. Is that fairly accurate, or does it really depend on the amount of activity in the storm?

[wolfcat]

some good tips...

this shot show both the good and the bad



Camera: Nikon D90
Exposure: 10seconds
Aperture: f/9.0
Focal Length: 22 mm
ISO Speed: 320
Flash: No Flash
Exposure Program: Manual

The other thing to watch is Long Exposure Noise Reduction.. at 10 seconds you are usually lucky and do not get any hot pixels (often red in the shot) so shooting shorter means that you can get more shots.. if you shoot at 30seconds Noise reduction doubles the length of time, so can half the amount of shots you might get.

I have a wireless trigger for the camera stops any shake.

The only other thing to keep in mind is that unless you have a very solid tripod outflow winds can often give you camera shake ruining an otherwise great photo so some where out of the wind if you are close to the storm is a good idea.

Also you can shoot lightning as the storm approaches or in the case of the above shot... as the storm is moving away from you.

[Meso]

Rikki, great pics as usual! I posted this in the storm chasing forum, but will ask here also, just in case you don't check there...can you give me a run down of the settings and techniques you use to get such fantastic lightning shots? I've just recently got a DSLR and gave lightning photography a shot last night, but it didn't turn out very well - too much blur, which i think was from not being able to focus very well in the dark. How do you manage to get such clear focus? Ive read the whole "focus on infinity" thing, but none of my lenses have an infinity marker so it makes it tough. Any advice you got would be appreciated!

[rikjpool]

1: I had massive problems with focusing before I got my 'L' series lens as well, because it didnt have an infinity marker. But the best way I found to get to infinity was to look through the viewfinder and focus on anything giving off a light in the furthest distance you could. It may be a house light, a street light, or even a car on a road a distance off. However it is mostly trial and era.

2: I always shoot the absolute lowest ISO your camera can go. For me its around 100, but for most Digital SLR's you'll be looking around 200-300. Try not to shoot any longer than 45sec, because you will get noise in your shot no matter how low your ISO is. I find if any longer as well, you will get alot of cloud movement and wont get to see alot of 'features' on the cloud.

and 3: I usually start shooting my aperture around the 5.6mark and step or down from there depending on the first shot. If im shooting at say 30mm like the first shots above I had it set to F8 because the main bolts were filling up the frame quite nicely and the bolts were close enough for that. However shot 3 could/should have been around F10 as it was very close to a blowout. However thankfully I was shooting in RAW (A must, if your camera has the option, for lightning photography) and was able to save the photo. The shot with the funnel was actually shot at F10 and was a blowout on the edge of frame, but once again thank you RAW. You will find that some bolts are just that much more powerfull compared to the rest of the ones that are happeneing. With the last shot overlooking Bendigo, I have stepped that one down to F4 because I was shooting at 10mm and the storm was that much further away because of the focal length. If that had been shot at the normal F8 it woul have been very very dark and would have only really seen the bolt and none of the cityscape.

Hope this all helps.


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[Rivergirl]

Thanks John and Rikki, good info to know especially shooting in RAW. I haven't done much night time photography in my time but starting to love it. Have been doing a lot of night shooting in the Docklands but can't wait to start shooting lightning.

[Meso]

Ok, thanks for the tips guys. I think my problem was probably a combination of focusing (I've got a 550d with the standard twin lenses atm, so no infinity marker) and maybe the aperture not quite being wide enough, along with the storm probably being a bit too far away by the time I decided to give this a try. I did try focusing on car lights in the distance, but I was using live view (lcd screen) instead of the viewfinder which might have hindered my ability to judge the focus properly.

Do you guys use remotes for lightning shots? I tryed this with a 20 sec exposure on a 2 sec timer last night, but my remote along with a few other goodies should be arriving next week (thanks Mr Tax Man ), so it'll be Bulb mode next time.

Another thing, do you guys have any techniques if it's raining or do you not even bother trying?

[Meso]

Ah, back of the car, I usually take the 4wd out so that's actually a good idea. Can't believe that never crossed my mind. I need to get a lens hood too, any recommendations?

And might be a good idea if Karl or a mod could cut these last few posts and paste them in to the thunderstorm photography thread instead of hijacking Rikki's thread, please. Cheers.