Spring storms!

I had a front row seat to a marvelous light show tonight. There was so much lightning at one point that I was catching 2 or 3 strikes in each 4 second exposure. Here is one that is a standout. I'm looking West from my deck in my back yard.
Pentax *ist DL w/50-200mm f4-5.5 zoom lense @ 50mm @ 4seconds ISO 400
Hope you like!!!

http://gallery.photographyreview.com...3-2006-_69.jpg

Ken

Ken,

Beautiful shot! I always had wondered how to get a lightening strike on camera but than of course....extended shutter! Great shot and I love the colors the bolts give off!

Jared

Great capture Ken. I'm so jealous! I have been wanting to get out and take some lightning shot but I alwasy seem to find myself in the wrong place at the wrong time, or don't have my camera and tripod with me.

I looked out our patio door last evening and saw the lightning, and told Amy that I sould be up on a hill with my camera. A few minutes later, tennis ball size hail started pelting the house. At the time, it me clad I wasn't out and about, but after seeing this shot, makes me wish I would have taken my chances with the storm.

I did take a pick of some of the hail Amy brought in the house after the storm passed. I will post it when I get some time.

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Originally Posted by mjs1973

Great capture Ken. I'm so jealous! I have been wanting to get out and take some lightning shot but I alwasy seem to find myself in the wrong place at the wrong time, or don't have my camera and tripod with me.

I looked out our patio door last evening and saw the lightning, and told Amy that I sould be up on a hill with my camera. A few minutes later, tennis ball size hail started pelting the house. At the time, it me clad I wasn't out and about, but after seeing this shot, makes me wish I would have taken my chances with the storm.

I did take a pick of some of the hail Amy brought in the house after the storm passed. I will post it when I get some time.

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Hi Michael...Thanx...I so miss the farm where we used to live. I had wide open spaces out there. Here in town, we are surrounded by trees. This is the only good open spot I have. We got very lucky with the hail stones. The largest we got was only marble size with the majority only pea size. (See photo below). I'll post some more of the lightning when I get a chance. I got some really nice shots. I was very pleased with the camera, except for the write times. On 4 second exposures, I had to wait an additional 6 seconds for it to write to the card before the camera would release and let me shoot another shot. Missed a lot of great shots because of this. Oh well...I had fun!!! haha...
Ken

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Originally Posted by jar_e

Ken,

Beautiful shot! I always had wondered how to get a lightening strike on camera but than of course....extended shutter! Great shot and I love the colors the bolts give off!

Jared

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Hi Jared...thanx. A few months back, someone posted a thread about shooting lightning and I tried it with the Kodak p/s. I was able to get a few nice shots with it, but nothing like last night. With the Pentax, I'm limited to ISO 200 on the low end, so I tried using it and ISO 400. Both had acceptable noise levels up to 4 seconds. I didn't try any longer last night as things were happening so fast, I didn't want to waste time fiddling with settings.
The trick...as you figured out is...long exposures, and a fast trigger finger ( or at least as fast as your camera will let you shoot, see my reply to Michael above).
With the start of the storm season for us, I'm hoping to perfect my technique and get even better shots. I really want to try the Nikon as it allows me much slower ISO (50) and has a wider angle than my Pentax lenses...but really, for my back yard, the 18-55 would probably have been fantastic. Hopefully Kims camera is back from the shop before the next big storm...I'll put the 18-55 on hers and the 50-200 on mine and we should be able to put together a heck of a slide show!!!!!!!
Ken

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Originally Posted by ken1953

On 4 second exposures, I had to wait an additional 6 seconds for it to write to the card before the camera would release and let me shoot another shot.

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Nice shot, Ken! Did you have a noise reduction setting on in the camera? My Coolpix has this (I know you said you used your Pentax which may be different) and what it does is that it takes a second "dark" exposure of the same shutter speed. The shutter doesn't open, so you get two files with similar noise. It compares the two, then cleans the noise out and does it pretty well. Even with NR left on, it only kicks in at about 1/15 or slower.

Because of this, the camera's already taking a picture so it can't be accessed for taking another shot for four of these six seconds. I'm not sure if any DSLR's do it this way, just a thought... Normally you don't have to wait because the camera writes to a buffer, then the buffer writes to the card. Once the buffer is full you have to wait though.

AV...thanx...yes...I did have it on. I'll have to try to turn off the noise reduction and try that!!! If this is the case, I think I'd prefer no noise reduction, since unlike a static picture, a second shot is useless with lightning, except that the second shot is taking either a blank sky or different lightning for the same shot. Interesting thought for discussion!!!
Ken
(Edit)
AV...just reread your reply and I may be misunderstanding how the second shot works...so let me try to clarify in my mind what you are saying...
I now think that the second shot is just a copy of the first at a different setting...not 2 seperate shots at different times...is this correct (simply speaking)?
Ken

Great catch Ken. I would just as soon not have storms like that anywhere near me, but they can produce some great images, as you have demonstrated. Well done thanks for posting this one.

WOW! Absolutely marvelous ken!

Great shot, Ken! When I find a perfect storm to photograph, I am too busy trying to survive it. I swam through one, drove a yacht through 6 foot waves, and had a tornado come through my campsite.

Ronnoco

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Originally Posted by ken1953

I now think that the second shot is just a copy of the first at a different setting...not 2 seperate shots at different times...is this correct (simply speaking)?
Ken

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It actually does take a second shot, but without opening the shutter (at least in my Coolpix). It basically just fires up the sensor for the same exposure and compares the two to see what's noise and what isn't. Anything that shows up in the "dark shot" is just going to be noise...

Put it this way - if the sensor records a shot but there's nothing for it to see because the shutter isn't open, then the file should be completely black, right? Every pixel should have readings of 0,0,0. Of course, this doesn't happen in real life... If there's any noise (which there will be because we live in the real world and not the theoretical world!), then there will be color values to some of the pixels. That's what the camera is looking at.

I remember reading about someone who took a long exposure using a DSLR, then took another shot with the same exposure with the lens cap on. Open both shots in Photoshop and there's some way to reduce noise but I'm not sure how that works (before Noise Ninja became popular). The process in my Coolpix basically just automates this procedure, but again I'm not sure if your DSLR does it this way.

Ken, fabulous image there. How many of us see a storm coming and say, "I should try to get a shot of that" but don't for some reason or another? I'm guilty of doing that from time to time. I'm glad you made the effort :)

I'm surprised that your Pentax only goes down to ISO 200. How do you take long exposures in bright daylight? Do you use neutral density filters? I use them with ISO 50 and 64 film to get flowing water images.

Hi Loupey, thanx for the comment...I haven't tried any long exposures in full daylight and probably won't. If I want long daytime...I'll break out the Nikon Coolpix 8400 which goes all the way down to ISO 50. I haven't gotten into filters yet...still trying to learn a full feature camera and all of it's settings first, much less trying to change it with filters...hehe...I did try some 1 sec or less exposures on and extremely gray day in shadowy area, but didn't work too well....but the Nikon works ok for this.
Ken

Here are some shots of the hail that Amy picked up after the storm. We tried to keep something in the image to give you a sense of scale.

We looked at the house today and found a few new holes in the siding. I also have a few dent's in my truck, but nothing major. Lots of broken car windows in the area, but no major damage that I have heard of.

Michael,

That's crazy stuff. Those things must come down with such force from the sky...not something to be taken lightly.

Wow Michael...that sure was a crazy storm...I was talking to a friend yesterday and she had tennis ball size hail at her house, only 6 blocks from my house and the largest we got was marble size...hehe. I slept through last nights storm...oh well, can't photograph them all. haha...
Ken

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ken1953

I had a front row seat to a marvelous light show tonight. There was so much lightning at one point that I was catching 2 or 3 strikes in each 4 second exposure. Here is one that is a standout. I'm looking West from my deck in my back yard.
Pentax *ist DL w/50-200mm f4-5.5 zoom lense @ 50mm @ 4seconds ISO 400
Hope you like!!!

Ken

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Great shot, Ken! I've got to try and take a picture like that too.:)

Ken,

I saw some nice lightning on the way home from Grandmas this afternoon, and it made me want to go out and give the lightning a shot. I have been waiting for a day like today so I wouldn't feel guilty about sitting inside working on my website, so that's what I'm doing instead. Perhaps if the lightning is still going on when it gets dark. :D