Lightning

[WJT]

Hi Bobo, nice shot. Lightning is always better with a good foreground and some scenery. Our season has just finished in Darwin and I have managed to get some shots which you can see on my web site below. I shot all of these shots at F:22 and focused on infinity with a 20 mm lens, using a tripod with 100 ISO, and 30 second SS. Many will say why F:22 but simply, it works for me. There is one shot which landed 100 metres from the camera and is in perfect focus, as is another strike in the back ground 5 km's away and another 10km's away. If your keen to get more shots you can buy a lightning reactor which will take the shot when there is a strike, I will buy one myself for next season and save my camera taking a lot of shots of nothing. Keep at it, its great hobby.

[Sunray]

Hi Bobo,

as you wish, here is my last lightning shot taken in 2010.


cu
Robert

[Bobobird]

Robert - that is one cool shot. Thanks for posting.

Wayne - thanks for the info. Your shots are amazing. Have recorded your setting into my little paper how-to notebook.

Lightning reactors is a good idea but the goods ones appear a bit too pricey. But.... if I see one in the shops around here it will probably get bagged.

This "Colin Perspective" shot was taken last year. ISO100, f8, 10sec, 30mm.

[BokehBo]

Too bad the camera would be fried.

[WJT]

Robert - that is one cool shot. Thanks for posting.

Wayne - thanks for the info. Your shots are amazing. Have recorded your setting into my little paper how-to notebook.

Lightning reactors is a good idea but the goods ones appear a bit too pricey. But.... if I see one in the shops around here it will probably get bagged.

This "Colin Perspective" shot was taken last year. ISO100, f8, 10sec, 30mm.

Nice shot, that is inspiring stuff. Come on CiC, lets gets some CRACKERS to talk about.

[enaiman]

Lucky people, we had about a handful of lightnings all year long ... all of them to the side of my house where there are no windows ...

My best shot shows a purple-ish patch of sky near the edge ... but I've got some wet glass photos instead ... lucky me

[ucci]

The problem with lightning shots is that they're always shot from the same (distant) perspective. Wouldn't it be cool to lie on one's back - in the middle of a field - and get a shot of the lightning coming towards the camera!

Not really. For as I understand and I probably have it wrong, but doesn't lightning actually go from the ground upwards? Anyway, if I have it right, what you are proposing is to have lightning come, either up or down, directly at and obviously then pass through you? Hmmm Very interesting and particularly brave approach to one's art. Should you actually proceed with this plan I would be most interested to hear from your beneficiaries how it all went.
Good luck
Old Ucci

[ucci]

Beeyudifull bolts Bobo! Well done.
Old ucci

[altopiet]

I took this one at ISO 100, f22, 30 sec

[Bobobird]

Great shot Christo, you even caught one in the far left. Wow,.

Now if only someone could get one knocking out a tree (Donald's tree would be an superb target ). That would be so awesome!

[Donald]

Now if only someone could get one knocking out a tree (Donald's tree would be an superb target ). That would be so awesome!

You keep your hands (and your lightning) off my tree, mate!

In fact, I'm just going to go and have a look at it. I've been away for a few days and in the half-light when I was driving home last night, it looked great. So, I'm off to see what it looks like today.

[Bobobird]

Hope you get some great shots in that light. Good luck.

Bolts do not travel half-way round the globe so you are safe from mine!

[altopiet]

Thanks Bobo, It was a lucky early evening, 6 shots with 4 keepers

[Bobobird]

Thanks Bobo, It was a lucky early evening, 6 shots with 4 keepers

You are one lucky guy. Should send you some money to buy me a lottery ticket.

[WJT]

I took this one at ISO 100, f22, 30 sec

Thats a CRACKER Christo, lets see some more.

[WJT]

This is what Darwin storm chasers do on Christmas Day. This lady is a known lightning photographer and the man behind the video is an exception lightning photographer.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm3rHONOr9o Paste it, amazing stuff with over four million views.

[WJT]

And this is my favourite "CRACKER" (unedited) which I took at about 101 metres this season. Did I blink, yea I did. This was a lightning fest but it still caught me off guard.

[Bobobird]

Is that someone standing next to the hit on the ground? I wonder how it will look after processing. One that would send me over the moon for sure.

We should sack the weather office here. Thunderstorms predicted for various hours and saw only one measly flash the whole day. Did get a fair bit of exercise though trudging around the city in the rain with umbrella in one hand and tripod in the other. Ah well... there is tomorrow with the same prediction. Surely they will get it wrong again.

[Donald]

That is an amazing capture of a lightning bolt.

As an image to show off, it does need a bit of work, I'd suggest:

• It needs straightened. I think that breakwater/barrier need to run horizontally, or at much less of a slope up to the left.
• I think that handrail/ barrier at the bottom should be taken out. After rotating the image to straighten it, I'd suggest trying a crop at the bottom just at the top of the handrail. That's going to make it something like a 2:1 landscape
• There are a couple of black spots on the sky. They need to be removed.
• And those, what look like, splash spots on the lens need to be cloned out
• Finally, and most fundamentally, can you see that the sky is full of ripple lines? That's a consequence of too-aggressive post-processing. If you can't see it, then your monitor might need some adjusting.

I'd say it was worth investing a bit of time with this one. You could end up with something very spectacular.

[altopiet]

Thats a CRACKER Christo, lets see some more.

Thanks Wayne. Living in a small town between some mountains, the thunderstorms tends to more or less follow the same routes. I was lucky to have my camera aimed at the correct one. All the shots were taken in the space of about 20 minutes, and were taken with my 1st DSLR, about 3 months after I got it. I used my 50mm f2 kit lens that I got with my first SLR in 1981.



Here are the other 3 shots