With storm season approaching I promised a friend I would do a how to post on how to photograph lightning. A popular misconception is anyone with a digital camera can photograph lightning? NO. There is skill and experience involved. First and most important you have to know how to adjust the f/stop as a storm is in progress. If you are close to a storm you want this higher. usually F/7 or as high as 12 depending on how frequent and bright lightning is. For the in cloud lightning you pretty much leave the f/stop at the standard F/3.5. Shutter speed can vary. For an inactive storm where bolts are few a 30 second exposure works but for an active storm 15 seconds and less works and you adjust up or down based on of the storm weakens or intensifies. Understand your camera is most important for lightning. The next thing you really need an understanding on is weather. You have to know where the storm is, how fast its moving and which way its moving. Zoomed in radar views work very well for tracking a storms core and its leading edge. The leading edge and core is where the most prolific and frequent lightning happens...Okay, we have covered that and here is where the diehard lightning photographer shows it self. PATIENCE, willing to FAIL many times to get that one shot and shooting at NIGHT. daylight lightning is a very hard beast to concur because long exposures even with filters are a lost cause because of excess light being let in. If one is gonna chance a daytime shot make sure the storm is hyper active. Its all a game of luck and chance during the day. Waiting on a night storm can be frustrating especially if said storm weakens. The best lightning pics come from the rain free areas so once it starts raining it gets harder especially if wind is involved. Choose an open window or the garage for shooting in the event of rain. NEVER stand outside when in a storm is a few miles away. Getting all this down takes time. It took me a year with my brothers camera then mine to get it and it took me 5 years before that doing it the old school one click at a time way. All in all I have almost 15 years experience shooting lightning and understanding it. All of this is why so many claim to want to shoot lightning then never do because its NOT as easy or as simple as having a long exposure. Many nights I have stayed up to 3, 4 and 5 am waiting on a storm to never have it get here and other times I up that late shooting for several hours. In the end, through patience, perseverance and being stubborn this is the end result!
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 18:17:06 +0000
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