Taken by Surprise
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An August monsoon shower to the west of my home.
- 86Promote
This quote pops in my mind everytime I see this photo. I love them both. =)
With all that said, I can tell you that lightning photography is actually very easy as the only exposure setting I ever change is the shutter speed. Once it is dark enough for me to set up for photography, I keep the camera's lens aperture set at f-5.6 and the ISO at 100 and I never deviate from those 2 parameters. Call me lazy but it always works for me. There are those who will tinker and experiment with those 2 parameters during a shoot but I've just never had a need to do so.
Now to the fun part...... If you have a DSLR camera, a very sturdy tripod that says steady in wind and a wireless remote shutter triggering device, you have all the basic things required to photograph lightning. If you don't have a wireless remote triggering device, and alternative shutter triggering method is simply to use the camera's timer. Also, these techniques are old school and there are now devices that can be mounted on the hot show of some DSLR which will open the camera's shutter automatically upon sensing light flashes. That piece of technology can greatly increase one's odds of capturing bolts as they happen. Since my camera's are not compatible with such devices, I have to take an old school approach to photographing lighting but it is also a simple one. As I said before, I keep the ISO at 100 and the lens aperture at f-5.6 and the only parameter I experiment with is the shutter speed for varying exposure times. Ideally, I do not like to touch the camera once I am focused in on an area that is consistently producing lightning which is why I recommend a wireless remote triggering device to open the camera shutter. As far as the desired shutter speed is concerned, that depends on just how dark it is in the direction you are photographing. There is always some ambient light in the sky after sunset that the human eye does not perceive after a certain point in time. To avoid over exposure, you may find yourself initially shooting at shutter speeds of 3 seconds, 5 seconds, and longer as it gets darker outside. My ideal most fun conditions are when I can shoot with exposure times of 15 seconds. I will sometimes widen that out to 20 seconds, 25 seconds or even 30 seconds but I don't like to do that unless there is a great amount of time in between lightning strikes because I am guaranteed to have ugly digital noise on my images at exposure times that approach 30 seconds or beyond in bulb mode. However, bulb mode can be a lot of fun to experiment with as that makes it possible to capture many lightning strikes in one image. Just make sure your tripod is locked down nicely because even the tiniest camera or tripod movement will ruin a photo with motion artifact.
PS: Here comes the advice part. If you can hear the thunder then you are too close to the action. In some cases, lightning bolts can strike objects up to 15 miles away. Also, if you are in the rain, forget it. I've been rained out on many occasions. Even light rain can ruin a good photo-op. Twice this summer I was set up for what potentially could have been great evenings for lightning photography but 2 things destroyed the entire evening. The first was light rain that moved in and eventually became heavy rain with heavy winds. I put all my gear back in my automobile and decided to wait it out in the hope that the wind and rain would move on. However, the next thing that happened was extremely low and violent lightning strikes crashing down all above and around me. It was like world war three. Needless to say, I went home empty handed that evening as those are conditions where you never want to attempt lightning photography. The ideal conditions are where you are at a comfortable safe distance from the action. Ideal lightning photography conditions are something you will develop an instinct for after enough times of attempting lightning photography. Good Luck! :)
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