High Voltage

[mjs1973]

We had a really nice light show Sunday night so I decided to try to get some images. This is one of my favorites. Here is a gallery to a few more images from Sunday night.

[Dale J Martin]

Nice image Mike!

You must have had the shutter open for a while, either that it was a very intense storm

Dale

[cm_mtb]

Great shot!

Dale, the EXIF information (obtained w/ a Firefox addon) says this was a 5 second exposure... so there was just a lot of lightning I guess.

[mn shutterbug]

Wow. Awesome shot, Mike. This is something I've never even attempted.

[SenorNikonMan]

Impressive image. I wish we had more thunder storms around here. Come to think of it, I wish we had rain around here. It hasn't rained in months and the highs have been 105+ every day for well over a month. :cryin:

Btw Mike, beautiful images on your website. :thumbsup:

[mjs1973]

Thanks everyone for looking and commenting.

CM is correct. This is a 5 second exposure, ISO 400 @ f/5.0. It was a lot of fun, and a little scary at times but well worth it.

Mike, you should give it a try. The hardest part is finding a location where you can get a clear shot of the storm off in the distance, before the rain gets to you. After that the rest is easy. I set the camera up on the tripod, pointed it towards the sky and put it on continuous mode, choose my setting, locked down the trigger on my cable release and went an sat in the truck. I have lots of frames with nothing in them, but quite a few that I would consider "keepers" as well.

[scott-devon]

Beautiful shot Mike, sounds like you had fun capturing it

[Loupey]

Spectacular work, Mike! Easily some of the best lightening displays I've seen captured.

[mjs1973]

Thanks Scott and Loupey.

This was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to try it again. I was sitting at home watching a show on the Discovery Channel about lightning and how scientists are using high speed photography to study it. They also had a still photographer on there talking about photographing lightning. That's when I noticed it flashing outside. I was pretty tired, and almost went to bed. Sure glad I put my shoes on and went out to give it a try.

[CaraRose]

Mouth dropped awe here.

[mjs1973]

Thanks Cara.

[Byron Lentz]

Thanks for the info, I will try it.
Later
Byron

[mjs1973]

Thanks Paul and Loupey for the Featured Photo!!! We had another storm roll through yesterday but no lighting. I did get soaked on my Harley on the way home from work though.

[Paul Fletcher]

Truly an amazing shot. Have never tried photographing lightning, but would love to try it.

Paul

[Frog]

That's quite a coincidence to be watching the show and the storm shows up.
If it helped prompt you, I'm glad it did for a great series of shots with this being the best.
We seldom see lighting like this. Even where we have open views, which I don't, its usually in the clouds.

[SenorNikonMan]

Thanks Scott and Loupey.

I was sitting at home watching a show on the Discovery Channel about lightning and how scientists are using high speed photography to study it. They also had a still photographer on there talking about photographing lightning.

I watched that show earlier this week. It was very interesting. Apparently some lightning travels from the ground up. The photographer they had on there still uses film so he has no idea what if anything he captures until he has the film processed and he sees the prints. Most of the prints have nothing on them, but he's thrilled anytime he gets one good shot.

[AmberC]

Wow! Beautiful!!

[SARtech]

Sweet capture! I remember looooong time ago when I was into B&W film and had my own darkroom, I had fun too shooting storms. It is exciting and an open garage facing in the right direction made it dry excitement.

[cgarrard]

I like Image 9164 quite a bit in your gallery, also if you clone out the tree in 9237, I think I'd like it more than the photo of the week image here. Either way, great color and excellent series. Too dry in CA (southern) to really be able to find any good light shows like this (sigh). Jealous, but very happy for you.

Carl

[mjs1973]

Thanks for looking and commenting everyone.

Carl, the other 2 photos you mentioned are the only 2 photos, besides the one posted above, from this series that I printed. (I left the tree.) I actually like the color of those images in the final print better than the image above. I did rework the above image and will have it reprinted. I also opened up the FG a little bit to show some detail in the flowers at the bottom of the frame.