Chasing Lightning

[chuckmoser]

Hello all. One of my hobbies has always been chasing storms, so when I bought my Digital Rebel SLR earlier this summer, I couldn't wait to see if could photograph lightning. I spent a sleepless night chasing a particularly violent light show all over Central Oregon.

These aren't exactly portfolio pieces, just interesting I thought. They were taken with a 20 second exposure.

Let me know what you think-
Thanks, Chuck

P.S.: As a side story, "lightning3.jpg" happened to catch a lightning bolt that shocked (didn't injure) a five-year-old child that was taking a bath when this bolt hit the neighbor's house, thus sending the charge through the water pipes.

[Overbeyond]

Hello all. One of my hobbies has always been chasing storms, so when I bought my Digital Rebel SLR earlier this summer, I couldn't wait to see if could photograph lightning. I spent a sleepless night chasing a particularly violent light show all over Central Oregon.

These aren't exactly portfolio pieces, just interesting I thought. They were taken with a 20 second exposure.

Let me know what you think-
Thanks, Chuck

P.S.: As a side story, "lightning3.jpg" happened to catch a lightning bolt that shocked (didn't injure) a five-year-old child that was taking a bath when this bolt hit the neighbor's house, thus sending the charge through the water pipes.

Flippin hell these are excellent. All three but one and two are great. Curious about the shutter speed you used for the first; I presume pretty long in anticipation of the lightning burst.?
Tom

[chuckmoser]

Not really long anticipation. The bolts were hitting once or twice every 30 seconds... usually in the direction the camera WASN'T pointed (there were four storms around me that night) or just when the shutter closed. Murphy's law type of thing. The shutter speeds were 10 - 30 seconds.

Thanks for the response!
-Chuck

[kushki]

those r really great shots. Needs lots of patience. By the way can neoe pls make me understand what is shutter speed exactly. How it can be set in a digital camera?? I m beginner and i have kodak cx7330 digital camera

thanks

[walterick]

Chuck, great shots! I feel blessed every time I get to shoot lightening.

Kushki -
Shutter speed is the amount of time your camera's shutter is open for. Here, Chuck used 20 second exposures. With lightening, the shutter speed does not affect how the lightening bolts will turn out. Aperature and film speed do. Shutter speed affects how well the other elements of the scene will turn out - foreground, any other lights, and the sky. Chuck used long exposures because it's hard to guess when lightening will strike. So, you leave your shutter open for as long as possible and hope that it strikes while your shutter is open.

Your camera probably has the ability to do this. Put it into manual mode and set your shutter speed to 20-30 seconds (or longer) and try an aperature of f8 or 11 if your camera lets you change aperature, and iso 100.

Good luck.

Chuck, do you recall your aperature settings?

Rick

[chuckmoser]

Sure thing. I gotta say, I didn't really know what I was doing (had just gotten the camera a few days earlier), so the f-stops are kind of all over the map. I found that if I didn't press the Aperture button hard enough when I wanted to change it, I would accidentally change the ISO. *sigh*

Top pic: Shutter 20 sec, f5.6, 400iso
Middle PIc: Shutter 4 sec, f3.5, 200iso
This one was actually taken a week later, just after twilight. The clouds were moving so fast, I couldn't keep the shutter open for very long.
Bottom pic: Shutter: 10 sec, f10, 800iso (yikes)

[Dianna]

the lit clouds in the second pic is amazing...

i'm regretting that i didn't just tough up and go take some during our storm a couple days ago!

oh well, great job

[juzzus]

Amazing stuffs .... !

[Paul.S.]

All are stunning, but the second pic with the cloud to cloud lightning takes the cake, very heavenly in its feel, like something is coming!

[u suck.com]

i lov the first pic the most! ...u must hav alot of patience, chuck..

[chuckmoser]

Thought I throw up one more for the hell of it. I thought this one was interesting since the lightning was about 12 miles from me. Kind of gives you an appreciation for the reach (and danger) some of these bolts have. Alot of the reddish-brown tint is from the forest fires that popped up as a result of storms earlier that afternoon.

Also, I'll attach a picture of clouds taken that same night just before twilight. The fire-tinted clouds already had lightning dancing from them, but the sky was too bright for long exposures. Does anyone have a recommendation for a good filter that would allow for that?

Thanks so much!

[readingr]

Wow great results - wish we had thunderstorms around here - when we do get them they are very limp compared to these.

Thanks for the tips on how to capture them - will try next time we get a thunderstorm - long wait to come.

[Outdoorsman]

Of course these are awesome. I can't even imagine getting to shoot this stuff, since we don't get lightning here but once or twice a year. You are, however, in the high desert there and lighting is more common even than over in the Willamette Valley, not even a day's drive away. But jeez! How dramatic!
My suggestion: don't worry about ISOs and shutter speeds and such. It looks like your results were pretty consistent across all the settings. One simple thing you can do is croip out a lot of the negative space around the areas that are lit by the lighning. Just a nice tight crop on the action. The pics with large black areas seem like a waste of space- I want to see those bolts up close and personal, like in some of the others where you've filled the frame.

[gahspidy]

These are all great shots that you should print up and should have no problem selling some of these if you wanted. your patience and hobby of yours has rewarded you with some photos to be proud of. Keep up the great work.