Lighting

Heywood · Post by **Heywood** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:11 pm

Anbody other than Dustin (Dont you do that for a living?) shoot lighting?

How do you set your camera up? We have some great stuff going on tonight and I would love to shoot it.

Tree-Bone · Post by **Tree-Bone** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:08 pm

use a wide angle lens, set it on BULB shutter speed, hold camera in right hand pointin up, Hold metal golf club in left hand as high into air as possible. When lightning hits the club it will fire the camera.

Rik · Post by **Rik** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:35 am

Dustin has some very good shots of lightning. Have never seen his shots of lighting, though.

JoeS · Post by **JoeS** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:41 am

Tree-Bone wrote:use a wide angle lens, set it on BULB shutter speed, hold camera in right hand pointin up, Hold metal golf club in left hand as high into air as possible. When lightning hits the club it will fire the camera.

Unless of course you use a 1 iron because even God can't hit a 1 iron

Heywood · Post by **Heywood** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 8:09 am

Tree-Bone wrote:use a wide angle lens, set it on BULB shutter speed, hold camera in right hand pointin up, Hold metal golf club in left hand as high into air as possible. When lightning hits the club it will fire the camera.

My last friend turns against me

Hey Flats, I can hit a 1 iron.

skinnywater · Post by **skinnywater** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 8:37 am

Bill, the few times I managed to get a halfway decent shot, I had the camera on the tripod, used the widest lens on Shutter priority mode. Play around with the shutter speed, depending on the amount of lightning i have gone as high as 10 seconds or more. I would use the remote to keep firing for a minute or two, then see what I caught.

mudfish · Post by **mudfish** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 9:33 am

Rik wrote:Dustin has some very good shots of lightning. Have never seen his shots of lighting, though.

Some folks just can't catch a clue eh Rik.

Heywood · Post by **Heywood** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:23 pm

teamshaft3 wrote:
Rik wrote:Dustin has some very good shots of lightning. Have never seen his shots of lighting, though.
Some folks just can't catch a clue eh Rik.

Careful HC3, thats borderline bad attitiude. It'll get you kicked out.

Triton · Post by **Triton** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:07 pm

Get yourself another keyboard...

Heywood · Post by **Heywood** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:27 pm

Yeah dude, I get it. Its spelled wrong. Thanks for pointing that out. You've been a big help.

You feel better about yourself?

Rik · Post by **Rik** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:43 pm

Much better, thank you.

Dustin · Post by **Dustin** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 12:11 am

A few from back in April. The storms were anywhere from 10-15km away. These were at 18mm, F/3.5, ISO 100, and exposures ranging from 1-3 minutes. I'll have to dig up some of my better shots when I have time.

Tree-Bone · Post by **Tree-Bone** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:34 pm

Here is the "word" right out of the Nikon School Handbook for exposures. (Pretty much what Dustin said.)

First, set up camera, mounted on tripod, with wide angle lens. Make sure it is not pointed at some light source that will screw up the exposure.

Since I know Bill's camera has 200 ASA/ISO film speed, set the lens between f5.6 -f 11.

There are 2 options for shutter speed:
1) IF you have a remote cable release set the camera on Bulb. The shutter will stay open as long as you hold the button down. Because you can hold it open for any length of time, i would favor the f11 range. You can also capture more than one lightning strike. (Works for fireworks too.)
2) If you don't have a remote release, set shutter speed to anywhere from 1 to several minutes and shoot in the f5.6 range. (Dustin opens his lens more (f3.5) that Nikon says and gets good results.

if this fails go back to the golf club technique. But remember, you only get one chance.

Dustin · Post by **Dustin** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 8:36 pm

I've found there are numerous techniques for shooting natural lightning depending on what you're trying to image. I prefer to shoot with a wider aperture in order to capture more of the fine luminous detail from small branches and streamers, realizing that I'll sometimes saturate the sensor on the main lightning channel. Unless the storm is very close, you'll lose alot of fine structure by stopping down. At work, we often shoot as wide as F/1.4 with our high-speed cameras (up to 1 million frames/sec) in order to capture filamentary details that would be completely invisible at a narrower aperture. I always shoot lightning at the lowest possible sensitivity (typically ISO 100 on DSLR's). The noise is drastically reduced, particularly when leaving the shutter open for up to several minutes. I like to take exposures of several minutes in order to capture multiple channels in the same frame.

Tree-Bone · Post by **Tree-Bone** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 6:41 am

"I've found there are numerous techniques for shooting natural lightning depending on what you're trying to image. I prefer to shoot with a wider aperture in order to capture more of the fine luminous detail from small branches and streamers,"

That is interesting. I would think greater debth of field would help capture more detail. I am going to have to remember that advice and try it next time we have a 'lighting" storm. Unlike Dustin, I have shot very little lightning.

Dustin · Post by **Dustin** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:57 am

Normally that would be true (regarding the DOF). However, with a wide angle lens focused at infinity, the depth of field is practically infinite. This is true even shooting with a wide open aperture.