Photographing Lightning?

ToddB · Jul 2, 2014

Hey guys,

We are intering our monsoon season down here in New Mexico. We had a heck of a light show last night. What is the best way to capture lightning?
Bulb setting set on f22?

ToddB

snapguy · Jul 2, 2014

wirtin' with lightn'

Sounds good to me. By using a variety of exposures -- 1 sec., ten seconds, etc. -- you will get different effects like maybe more than one lightening strike on the neg.

GRHazelton · Jul 2, 2014

I wonder if my Pentax LX would do the job, since it measures the light received on the film in real time. Enough light and the shutter closes. I've used it with great success for fireworks. All I did was make a couple of throwaway shots to get some idea of the duration of the exposure at given f stops, then opened the shutter at the launch of the pyrotechnic.

Alan Gales · Jul 2, 2014

ToddB said:
Hey guys,

We are intering our monsoon season down here in New Mexico. What is the best way to capture lightning?

ToddB

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kite_experiment

Neil Grant · Jul 2, 2014

ToddB said:
Hey guys,

We are intering our monsoon season down here in New Mexico. We had a heck of a light show last night. What is the best way to capture lightning?
Bulb setting set on f22?

ToddB

More like 'bulb' at a nice wide aperture (say f/4). 400 speed colour neg for exposure latitude. How dark are your skies in NM?

Hatchetman · Jul 2, 2014

what "I" would do is use my digital camera to help judge the exposure - I'd be looking for something several seconds long. Then I would use a film camera that I can open and close the shutter freely with the release cable. repeatedly open and close shutter, catching the lighting, for a combined total seconds equal to approximately what your total exposure time requirement is.

if that makes any sense.

GRHazelton · Jul 2, 2014

Sounds good, lacking a Pentax LX Seriously, using the digital this way sounds like a good idea. I didn't have a DSLR when I shot the fireworks over the Kanawa River at Charleston WV several years ago.

cliveh · Jul 2, 2014

ToddB said:
Hey guys,

We are intering our monsoon season down here in New Mexico. We had a heck of a light show last night. What is the best way to capture lightning?
Bulb setting set on f22?

ToddB

I would suggest that you are dead on with that setting and if it is at night, why not leave the shutter open for a couple of hours.

ROL · Jul 2, 2014

You can use the point and pray technique with the added joy of XMAS morning when you finally open the box. One of the bonuses of acquiring multiple strikes is the their ability to provide ambient lighting as well. One hour at Mather Point:

Night Lightning, Grand Canyon
(120 Kodak Technical Pan)

DREW WILEY · Jul 2, 2014

I'm accustomed to seeing nite lightning shots with the forks going every which away - but that single main streak just off-center - you sure
bagged that one, ROL, and avoided another Grand Can cliche too. Interesting that you used Tech Pan - was that just the era, or was there an actual technical reason, like being sloooow speed? The last time I ever shot 120 Tech Pan was up there looking thru the Lost Canyon wall "V" at Courtwright, with daytime thunderheads over the distant ridge toward Woodchuck Country. I stumbled onto that neg last week and wondered whether to try reprinting it. I presume you've probably climbed around Lost Can or the adjacent domes. Tech Pan is not my favorite outdoor film by any means, but like many others, I experimented with it. For being such a cantankerous cuss, you take some pretty nice pictures!

jp498 · Jul 2, 2014

ROL, that is excellent!

Digital would be a good way to test conditions for sure. The last lightning I shot, I used the video mode on my DSLR and kept 1080P video frames. No substitute for film and grain, but it works suprisingly well.

ROL · Jul 2, 2014

jp, Drew – thanks. Like I said – shoot and pray. I didn't avoid nuthin', other than getting struck myself. Tech Pan was in the camera from earlier in the day. I haven't used it in over 10 years. Most of the frame is actually basically featureless black, having kept the view as wide as I dared in order to catch something. The fine art print is cropped and composed under the enlarger. It has a lot of "artifacts" requiring a lot of spotting to make it presentable and only printable to 11x14 (small for me). Because of a lack of wide tonality and relative harshness, I don't consider it one of my better efforts, just a lucky one. But, people are always drawn to it at showings, perhaps because of a rather dreamy quality, so what do I know?

DREW WILEY · Jul 2, 2014

Tech Pan was always disappointing for tonality, though I have a backpacking companion who addicted to it in his own MF gear, whom I' now
trying to convert to something else. He made the horrible mistake two summers back of trying to sort out a pile of exposed Efke 25 rolls at nite
using an LED headlamp. That stuff has poor antihalation properties and he ruined half of them - and there was some pretty hard off-trail work
to get most of them. I'm reminded of Shirakawa, who lost 80% of his Himalyan shots to suspicious customs agents or shipping loss, yet still bagged one of the classic books of mtn photography - all the black in white in Konica IR film. I tried that too, with so-so results.

MattKing · Jul 2, 2014

GRHazelton said:
I wonder if my Pentax LX would do the job, since it measures the light received on the film in real time. Enough light and the shutter closes. I've used it with great success for fireworks. All I did was make a couple of throwaway shots to get some idea of the duration of the exposure at given f stops, then opened the shutter at the launch of the pyrotechnic.

Or an OM2 or any of the other Olympus bodies with OTF metering.

RalphLambrecht · Jul 2, 2014

ToddB said:
Hey guys,

We are intering our monsoon season down here in New Mexico. We had a heck of a light show last night. What is the best way to capture lightning?
Bulb setting set on f22?

ToddB

I'd try a pinhole cameraand ISO100 filmin a remote area wiyhout too much disturbing foreground.Don't get hiteven if that would make an interesting shotbut it could be your lastone

piu58 · Jul 3, 2014

I photographed lightnings in my younger days. It is quite easy: Wait for a thunderstorm at night or with very dark clouds, use a fast film around 400 ASA, use a wide aperture and open the shutter for some seconds. If the thunderstorm is heavy after ten to twenty shots you are sucessful.

dehk · Jul 3, 2014

ISO 100, f4 - f8, B.

jeff.blackwell · Jul 3, 2014

I shot this in 2008 during a freakishly energetic lightning storm. I shot all 12 frames on a roll of 120 Provia 100F, keeping the aperature constant, but using longer exposure times with each subsequent frame. This was the last shot from the roll, a 1 minute exposure at f16. I benefited from street lights for ambient fill in the foreground, but most of the light came from the multiple bolts of lightning that struck within that one minute period.

cliveh · Jul 3, 2014

Great shot Jeff.

DREW WILEY · Jul 3, 2014

It's the macro shots of lightning which really count. It helps to have a very tall aluminum tripod.

Poisson Du Jour · Jul 3, 2014

I have a very strong aversion to photographing lightning outdoors, especially in the outback, despite it being both thrilling and absolutely scary in "The Dry" that characterises the high northern latitude of Australia. A tripod mounted out there with electrical activity wandering about is a sure recipe for disaster because the storms are really, really angry. That said, if you're really keen photograph lightning from in the car, or erect a tent outside and put the camera-tripod by the door way. Put the camera into B (bulb) with around f5.6 to f8 for about 2 minutes in an active, moving storm. I've never been fussed for film; Provia 100F is fine, but you can also use tungsten film for an ethereal, truly electrifying blue. If you have multiple exposure, you can layer the images. There are lots of ways to approach the subject and you have to make your choice pretty quick when opportunity arises.

GRHazelton · Jul 4, 2014

Poisson Du Jour said:
I have a very strong aversion to photographing lightning outdoors, especially in the outback, despite it being both thrilling and absolutely scary in "The Dry" that characterises the high northern latitude of Australia. A tripod mounted out there with electrical activity wandering about is a sure recipe for disaster because the storms are really, really angry. That said, if you're really keen photograph lightning from in the car, or erect a tent outside and put the camera-tripod by the door way. Put the camera into B (bulb) with around f5.6 to f8 for about 2 minutes in an active, moving storm. I've never been fussed for film; Provia 100F is fine, but you can also use tungsten film for an ethereal, truly electrifying blue. If you have multiple exposure, you can layer the images. There are lots of ways to approach the subject and you have to make your choice pretty quick when opportunity arises.

From a car sounds like the better idea, since the car would constitute what I think would be called a Faraday Cage. I recall seeing the 10 or 12 foot bolts from a huge Van de Graff generator strike what amounted to a large bird cage on a hydraulic lift. The man inside kept up a running commentary from the cage during the "storm." Not my ideal occupation!

The car might be damaged, but the photographer would survive. In a tent? If it had a metal frame....maybe. I imagine that there's some maximum spacing of the metal elements beyond which there is little if any shielding. http://science.howstuffworks.com/faraday-cage.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

Poisson Du Jour · Jul 4, 2014

GRHazelton said:
From a car sounds like the better idea, since the car would constitute what I think would be called a Faraday Cage. I recall seeing the 10 or 12 foot bolts from a huge Van de Graff generator strike what amounted to a large bird cage on a hydraulic lift. The man inside kept up a running commentary from the cage during the "storm." Not my ideal occupation!

The car might be damaged, but the photographer would survive. In a tent? If it had a metal frame....maybe. I imagine that there's some maximum spacing of the metal elements beyond which there is little if any shielding. http://science.howstuffworks.com/faraday-cage.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

Disaster can still strike if in a car. If you are in contact with anything metal inside the car and lightning strikes it's bye-byes.
I sheltered in my tall Black Wolf (aluminium framed) tent last September during a fairly violent electrical storm in the outback. Laid on the floor in sleeping bag. Furious winds preceded the build-up then calm and heavy rain as the storm passed directly overhead but no lightning strikes nearby, even though thy sky was luminous from the activity. Not to say that putting a camera and tripod just outside a tent is safer: it's better not to be foolhardy just for a nice pic, especially if the electrical activity in the storm is coming directly at you! I suggest researching "St Elmo's Fire" where there can be a very noticeable and cool-blue "buzz" in the immediate vicinity. If you experience this in an isolated place during a storm, run like hell...

DREW WILEY · Jul 9, 2014

I've been thru lightning storms so severe in the mtns that I could read a book at nite by the nearly constant flashes. It's better to be in a severe storm up there, if you're in a safe little nook, than out on a lake or in an open pasture. Typically you cross the high passes in the morning before things go crazy. Don't camp on a big bare outcrop where you see a lot of adjacent trees half burnt-up, etc.

DREW WILEY · Jul 9, 2014

Yeah... run like hell. The air starts buzzing, you start smelling ozone, metal objects start glowing, and then the hair on your arms and head
starts standing on end.... get the hint?

Photographing Lightning?

ToddB

snapguy

GRHazelton

Alan Gales

Neil Grant

Hatchetman

GRHazelton

cliveh

ROL

DREW WILEY

jp498

ROL

DREW WILEY

MattKing

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RalphLambrecht

piu58

dehk

jeff.blackwell

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