How to shoot lightning?

[mjs1973]

We had a big thunderstorm roll thru our neck of the woods last night. We were in Madison checking out the Corps Flower when it hit. All the way home I just watched the lighting and wished I had my camera with me, and a place to set up to shoot it. By the time I got home tho, the rain had moved in and the lightning was gone for the most part. I have never tried to shoot lightning before so it would have been an experiment for me to say the least. So does anyone have any advice for me when the next storm rolls in? I will most likely be shooting with my DRebel, but film is always an option as well if you think that would be better. So what are your thoughts? digital or film? film choice? shutter speed? f/ stop? wide angle, telephoto?

Any advice would be great.

[Sebastian]

Tripod, cable release, bulb, f/8, ISO 100 or 200 and keep the shutter open for a few seconds at a time, hoping that you'll get some lightning in the frame.

[mjs1973]

Thanks for the tips Seb! This should give me a great place to start next time a storm rolls thru!

[another view]

Did it open? Does it stink as bad as people say? Having never seen it I wish I could make it up there but don't have the time - probably missed it anyway.

One thing - Seb's suggestion will work great but the sky has to be dark. Not just after sunset, but dark like fireworks. It's kind of the same principal as shooting fireworks, actually. Thursday night I shot lightning that was coming thru a cloud at about 15-20 second exposures, around F11 and ISO100. On the frames where I did get a lightning strike, the clouds were just a little brighter but it didn't show the bolt of lightning. However, it wasn't fully dark yet (about 8:30 or 9:00).

You'll go thru a lot of film doing this too...

[mjs1973]

Thanks for the input Steve. The flower did open, but by the time we got there it had already closed up. There was a lingering stench in the room, but one of the staff members said that what we could smell was nothing compaired to when it was opened. In the wild these things can be smelt from up to a mile away.

I figured Seb's advice was aimed at shooting in the dark. I went out yesterday afternoon to a bluff high above the Wisconsin River, just before sunset. It was beautiful when I left, but by the time I got to the top of it I could see the clouds start to roll in from the west. I had an hour drive and 10-15 minute hike to get to the top of the bluff. I did see some lighting off in the distance but it was still too bright out to use a longer shutter speed. So I put on a polarizer and an 8 stop ND filter, and closed my lens down to f/22. That gave me up to 5 seconds depending on which way I was pointing. I wasn't lucky enuf to have anything enter my frame tho. I would have the camera pointing in one direction, and the lightning would pop up somewhere else. Eventually my view of the impending storm was blocked by trees so I headed back to the truck. I finaly got to the spot I wanted to get to, but by that time it was pouring so hard I couldn't even roll down my window without getting soaked... So I headed home with the storm moving away behind me. I did manage to catch a bolt on my way home, but it was so far away that you can hardly see it... add to that a 43 second shutter speed and I ended up with a "noisy" mess. I cleaned it up the best I could but still not at all what I wanted. Here is a full version, and crop.

[another view]

That gave me up to 5 seconds depending on which way I was pointing.

Let's think about this for a minute. The light didn't change, but the camera position did... I do have a point to this...

[mjs1973]

Let's think about this for a minute. The light didn't change, but the camera position did... I do have a point to this...

This was done before it was dark out. Some parts of the sky were brighter than others. The sky to the west was considerably brighter than the sky to the north.

[another view]

Some parts of the sky were brighter than others.

That's what I was getting at. If your shot had a small section of sky (long lens, say 200mm) and you used a different exposure for every composition, they would be all the same darkness (assuming that you're trusting the in-camera meter, and using the reading it gave you every time, with or without the same exposure compensation). For example, say a shot really close to the sun gave you 1/250 at f8 and you shot it at that reading. It would be just as bright on your slide as if you swung the camera 30 degrees to the north, got a reading of 1/60 at f8 and used that reading for that shot. Naturally there will be differences between the two shots (color temperature of the light will be very different, etc) but overall one won't really look too much darker.

In other words, the brighter areas of the sky wouldn't look brighter because they weren't photographed that way.

You could take a spot meter reading on a section of sky and use that exposure regardless of where you pointed your camera. Now, I'm not saying that this would be the right approach for this shot or any other, and I'm not telling you how to have to do it. But the more you know about it, the more you'll be in control of exposure instead of the camera. Just a suggestion, and something to think about. I wouldn't always do it this way either - but a lot of times I'll take a spot meter reading a couple of degrees away from the sun, and set that at +1 (if it reads 1/250 at f5.6, I'd use 1/125 at f5.6 for example). With Velvia, I usually expose it at ISO50 so I might add 1-1/3 stops to the reading (some people just expose it at ISO40 to keep it easy).

Michael, I'm not picking on you - just trying to point something out to anyone reading this thread. There are a lot of ways that exposure can be determined. Hopefully this is just another tool for you to use, and hope it helps at some point.

[Bjoernowitsch]

We had a big thunderstorm roll thru our neck of the woods last night. We were in Madison checking out the Corps Flower when it hit. All the way home I just watched the lighting and wished I had my camera with me, and a place to set up to shoot it. By the time I got home tho, the rain had moved in and the lightning was gone for the most part. I have never tried to shoot lightning before so it would have been an experiment for me to say the least. So does anyone have any advice for me when the next storm rolls in? I will most likely be shooting with my DRebel, but film is always an option as well if you think that would be better. So what are your thoughts? digital or film? film choice? shutter speed? f/ stop? wide angle, telephoto?

Any advice would be great.

As far as in 1983, there was a thunderstorm one night while I was at home, and it lasted long enough for med to set up my Pentax LX with my telephoto lens, set at f/32, with the automatic exposure on. Look at this picture, and you will see: