So a storm rolled through, it being monsoon season and all. Managed to grab a half decent pic...



Then...



Touchdown 100 yds away. I immediately took down the equipment and cowered behind the sofa!

FYI, both pics from Canon XSI, EFS 17-55mm, @ 2.8 for 10 seconds, 100 ISO.

Damn! that had to freak you out! It's sort of like the ol' be careful what you ask for... you just might get it!!

Great captures

Awesome! I'm not generally afraid of lightning as long as I'm in the house, but to get out there in it kinda spooks me. I've wanted to shoot some lightning for quite some time and haven't had very many chances. I did get one photo of some lightning WAY off in the distance.

Oh I wasn't out there for those shots heh . I was outside while the storm was far away, got a few shots but nothing spectacular. After I saw a few flashes almost overhead the air was literally electric, could feel tingling sensations on exposed hairs (was wearing tshirt n shorts) so decided it would be best to get indoors! About 5 minutes later those shots were taken with the camera in the kitchen zoomed out through an open door, luckily the storm came right overhead, the mesa in the background is about 1km away.

Ummm...don't forget to unplug all of your computers, TV's, and anything else that you want to have around should the lighting strike a nearby power pole.

My neighbor had lightning strike his house, come in through the roof, into the wiring and fried nearly everything that was plugged in...surge protected or not.

Beautiful shots.

Was the hair on the back of your neck standing on end??? That's the sign that the static charge is strong around you and you'd better take cover.

None of those things around here, all underground I'm sure the effect is the same if it manages to hit the cable



Did he manage to get money back from those surge protector companys that 'guarantee' protection? I often wonder about their guarantees.

Thanks

The hair on the back of my neck was indeed standing on end. And the hair on my arms, and legs, anywhere that wasn't covered in clothing! I really ran inside.

Man I love lightning, the only opportunity I've had was about a year ago and it was shorty after I had gotten my D80 and I barely knew how to use it. I got lucky with one though:

V nice!

Those shots are incredible!

Nice ones! I love lightning, and i was hunting some down last summer myself. Hopefully i'll be able to get some lightning-timelapses next summer. : )

Awesome!

Nice catch! I can't wait to go stormchasing again.

Anyone have success stories or tips on how to catch strikes in the daytime without taking shots continuously until you get lucky? The only time I tried, that's what I did, but there's got to be a better way. I guess I could close up the aperture and slow down the shutter so that I don't have to take quite as many shots.



I wish I could shoot this storm again...I've learned so much since then (July '07).

I've tried that, and the results are less than impressive. Because the lightning strike only lasts a fraction of a second, using lower aperture and longer exposure simply dims down the lightning compared to the background. You'll need a lightning trigger as tmophoto suggested. Some Canon compacts can capture lightning with CHDK (firmware hack) via motion detection scripts (see here), but I'm not sure how well that works during daytime.

ah good thoughts, thanks!

a DIY job is more apt to fit my my budget, will look into it.

Holy Mother of God! WHAT A SHOT!

Nowhere near on a par, but these two were taken outside of Alamogordo, NM, couple of years back. What I liked most was the combination with sunset....at the end of a motion control move.



I then whacked the wide lens on, and left it running as long as I could....2 sec exposures, and got this one in the final frames...



About 45 seconds later the wires on the telegraph poles by the road were fizzing and buzzing like crazy. Didn't even have time to dismantle the camera....just threw it, intervalometer, tripod and all into the back seat and jumped in the car. Insane rain and strikes then exploded all around us, though not as close as Ser's.

It was shot as part of a docco I was working on, and an edit of all the timelapse footage is at
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... ID=9357861

Man, those storms in the South West US are just amazing and New Mexico blew my socks off generally. I'd love to do what Joe Taylor's doing and just shoot for years in those places.

Hi, have you made any progress with this? I made a daylight lightning trigger a few years ago when I was getting back into electronics - it didn't work very well at all. It has been a long-standing ambition to try it again, now that I know a little more about electronics. It's a pity accurate lightning prediction is so difficult, as the following strokes are usually not as beautiful as the initial stroke (which is usually missed by the camera).

Id be interested in making a lightning trigger myself, when im out shooting lightning, my exposures are all 30seconds long, around iso 100 at f 4.5... shooting with a canon 40d lens. I know my biggest problem right now is getting faster glass... all in due time. here are a few of my shots.

a few more.

Great shots. I really wanna try capturing some this summer. how is everyone keeping there camera dry/protected during the rain to get these?

everytime ive gone out, ive beaten the rain, usually happens after im done. The other times ive gone out where i am able to shoot the lightning from a lean-too in an open field from a dog park... so i cant really help on your questions i kinda plan my timing and seek out places that have shelter but yield good advantage points. Thanks for the comments on the photos much appreciated!

Shawn

Ran across a spectacular shot I thought I'd share, taken by Francis Schaefers in the Netherlands:

Wow thats intense! i wonder what the people in that boat felt.... lol

Yeah, he called the photo "The Cruise You Don't Want to Take". Here's another one from the same photographer/spot, striking just 40m away. If he was laughing at people on the ship, he probably quit at this point...

thats freaking insane!

Holy Crap! Those are unbelievable!

My humble addition to this genre(first attempt at capturing lightning):

Shot this one with my 8 yr old son for his 'news' at school...

It's off the cliffs above Bondi in Sydney

Cheers

Murray

storm came thru Phoenix the other night (1/13/10)

This is a single 10sec frame - no processing. Camera set to Tungsten WB to make the lightning appear blue and to help cancel the yellow city lights.

a Nikon shooting buddy of mine has been successful at capturing daytime lightning using a DIY sensor trigger detailed here:
http://www.glacialwanderer.com/hobbyrobotics/?p=16

see his folder of pics here (with an equipment list for building the unit):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iaincarado ... 660951255/

Alway's nice to see lightning pics.
great shots are showed in this topic, the pic of Murray Fredericks realy rocks .
here A shot I took.
3 pics combined into one.


and a single shot.

I made a similar Daytime Lightning Triggering device, from http://www.solorb.com/elect/lightning/index.html



Taken a few shots from it, just recently bought a couple of ND filters so this should help in reducing the exposure to capture more of the bolts...

I have a few images in my album, I think on the second and third pages?

http://s363.photobucket.com/albums/oo73/AstromanSID/Weather/

Works terrific....

This was about a 20 second exposure in Apache Junction, Arizona.

All of these are awesome, I've yet to snap a "good" picture of lightning since I started shooting last December.

I have been obsessed with lightning ever since I was a little kid. Take my camera, tripod & lightning trigger with me wherever I go.

Snapped this photo during a wicked storm in Aruba in 2007 while on my honeymoon, left wife sleeping in the room ! ; )



http://www.brianduddy.com/g/weather

Shot this from my kitchen.


This is one of the frames

Put some of those together in photoshop and you'll get a crazy picture.

Here's another technique which worked pretty well for shooting fireworks. It should work great for
lightning or any other fast, unpredictable events. Shoot the entire thunderstorm with a camcorder.
Go in and delete as much of the non-lightning footage as you want to in post. You now have the
advantage of knowing exactly when each bolt will strike. I use Premiere, but any NLE should let you
move forward through the timeline until a bolt strikes, then back up a few frames and "cut the film"
with the razor tool. Scroll forward a few frames until the lightning is finished and make another cut.
Save all the good lightning parts between the cuts, and ripple-delete all the long, dark parts
between bolts. Now you have a very short film which includes every bolt and not much else, it
looks like a cloud shooting out one bolt after another. If your camcorder allows manual focus, use
it. Some camcorders with autofocus will just continuously search if there isn't enough light for AF to
lock. That always frustrates me. If you are looking for a camcorder, I highly recommend the Sony
CX-12. Its a tiny hand held camcorder with a Zeiss lens and crystal clear 1080 images. It has a
multifunction knob that lets you take manual control of focus, aperture, exposure, etc.

Ser Olmy, I'd like to see your photos but they're not appearing for me, even after refreshing.

Here's one of mine - shot on 100asa slide film, despite this being the DSLR sub-forum!

I just use bulb mode and the same remote trigger that I use for time-lapse. My preference is to catch the back side of the storm (retreating) but that doesn't always work the best.

This one is a 30s exposure



And this one I just opened the shutter when it flashed and closed it when it was through

Hi all,

Here are some of my efforts.













D800 + 17-35 wideangle