Lightening pictures

[wvhunter]

Had a storm roll in right after dark tonight and thought I would experment with my digital and try and capture some lightening. Here are a few of the better ones. Out of around 175 shots probably 15 actually had lightening in them.

 

[wvhunter]

another

 

[wvhunter]

one of my favorites.

 

[wvhunter]

another...

 

[wvhunter]

last one for now

 

[wvhunter]

These all were taken with a Fuji S5100, with a 10 second shutter setting at F5.6 using a 3 shot burst. So I could press the shutter once and get 3 10 second shots. Went thru a bunch of frames with no lightening in them but could figure out any other way to capture lightening. Any ideas of how to improve or other ways to capture lightening let me know. The orginal before resizing for posting is a good bit better.

 

[Lan-Lord]

wv, nice captures, especially the last 2. You captured a couple of good strikes and I like the tree silhouettes too. Quality looks good here, I'm sure the hi-res looks even better.

I can't think of anything that you could do differently to improve your success ratio. Lightning (fireworks too) is kind of hit or miss. Unfortunately with the non-SLR digitals, you have to wait for the camera to write the image before you can fire again. which prevents some opportunities.

 

[VHRAM]

lightning is amazing I like the last 2 shots

 

[JoeG52]

Nice shots WV.

 

[doorman]

Cool pictures, Bzz and I were on a Phrong horn hunt last year and took these

We were on the way back to town driving about 80 after a great hunt and just lucky I guess
Doorman

 

[fossilman]

I take lots of storm shots,one thing is for sure...a digital will never replace a 35mm for great focus and shots................"I don't care what anyboby say's"

PS: Great shots on the lighting........."Last two"

 

[quailsroost]

Type in "lightning photography" into you search engine and you will get a lot of ideas on how to photograph lightning, I use manual settings, a tri-pod, F-8, 30 sec. exposure, point the camera in the direction of the most active part of the storm, hit the shutter button and wait. you will get some blanks but keep shooting until the card is full then go back and delete the blanks and keep going. In an active storm you could get more than one strike in a frame, don't forget lightning safety, here's one from last year.

 

[foulshot]

Here's one of my recent ones from the thunderstorms that passed through San Diego a few weeks ago.

I shot this in Manual with the exposure set to bulb. With the remote release, I end the exposure right after a strike. This seems to working out for me pretty well.

Good shots everyone!

QR, looks like the strike was close enough to make the tripod shake!!