Lightning Photography Techniques

[random]

Hi guys,

I'd like to hear a bit more about preferred techniques for lightning photography, now that I'm back up in Brisbane, and this weekend is supposed to be another 'good' one.

Up til now I've been doing exposure times of between about 4 and 10 seconds, taking lots of pictures, then picking out the ones where lightning actually hit.


Any other techniques to try out?


{edit: these were taken a few weeks ago, tripod, exposure around 4sec. I'd taken a few more with exposures around 10sec as well}

[David Kembrey]

Hi Random, have a look at this site, has some great information on how to photograph lightning


http://www.hillsrain.com/lightning/lightning_tute.shtml

[random]

Nice! Thanks David.

I have the little IR remote (saw it at a shop once for something really cheap like $10 or $15 and just picked it up). But I didn't realize I could use that.

I've figured out how to use the right settings and trigger from that, so I will check it out - probably tonight if the weather-man has got his act together.

[nisstrust]

Another good tip is to perhaps try shooting in jpeg, as when you shoot long exposures in raw, it just takes ages for the camera (which ever camera body your using) to buffer it into the memory card. This is precious seconds before you can setup to fire off the next shot. Ideally you want to be firing off as many shots as you can, at whatever exposure you've decided to shoot at (i preference anything above f/12 and with a shutter speed of 20-30secs, underexposed by about 1-2 stops)

Goodluck! Stay safe, Storm chasing is fun!

[random]

Aha! that happens! yeah. and that's why i was slowing down the exposure time a bit.

I have a few tips to try out tonight!

[MrJorge]

Thanks for the thread and the link. Good info here.