Silver lining in the cloud – taking lightning photos

May 22nd, 2008 By Vaibhav | 11 Comments » Tags: ,

The weather in Delhi has been super freakish lately (for this time of the year). Daily thunderstorms have become a norm and it’s getting to be quite a nuisance. However, for every dark cloud, there exists a silver lining. Last night when the rain gods were having a party, I decided to take out my camera and capture the silver lining. Here follow some of the pictures that came about from that effort.

This one is the best of the lot by far; my camera was pointed exactly at the right place at the right time.

1

I have no previous experience photographing lightning (actually not much experience in photography at all). The way I took these was to mount the camera on my tripod, and then set the exposure for 10 seconds, with an ISO of 250. Then I pointed to an area in the sky and simply started clicking (not waiting for the lightning). Now during the 10 second exposure, if a lightning happened to take place in the field of view of my camera, it would be captured. This particular shot is the only one I got (in over 300 shots where the lightning occurred bang in the middle of where my camera was looking).

The rest of the pictures have been cropped from much larger pictures (due to lightning happening on the sides of the field of view). Here goes:

5

The above is actually two different lightning taking place. Since it was a 10 second exposure, both were caught on the same photo. The one below has the same story.

17

And here are some more:

3

8

13 14

4

I think those are enough. I won’t put too many more in anymore. If anyone has simple to use tips that can help me improve my lightning photography capability, then please let me know in comments.

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11 Responses to “Silver lining in the cloud – taking lightning photos”

  1.   Vishal Says:
      May 23rd, 2008 at 2:05 am

    These are very good. Some more detail in the foreground, may add to the overall appeal though it may make it less dramatic. You can try using a larger aperture if you are not already. I would also suggest playing with the exposure time – try a longer exposure time to get more foreground detail. I have tried exposure times of upto half an hour for low light landscapes (though not with lightning) – you can get some beautiful pictures.

    Reply
  2.   Rohit Tripathi Says:
      May 23rd, 2008 at 10:16 am

    wow beautiful pictures, 1st and 4th is awesome, thnks for sharing :-)

    Reply
  3.   Vaibhav Says:
      May 23rd, 2008 at 11:33 am

    @Vishal, thanks for the tips… I would never have thought of that long an exposure ever, but now that you mention it, it makes sense… of course, i wouldn’t do it with lightning because a very long one would make everything white (i had a perfect shot of lightning but the exposure was 30 seconds, and so there was a lot of white due to other strikes during that period)…

    Aperture: alas, i was limited by my lens. The best my lens can do is 4.0 (I wanted to buy one which was 2.0, but it was too expensive)… (the lens I was using was: Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM). My camera setup: http://blog.gadodia.net/i-bought-a-new-camera/

    thanks for the advice… (and I guess, I can pat my own back for getting these pictures on the first try) :)

    @Rohit, thanks for the complements…

    Reply
  4.   Gordon Blackler Says:
      July 20th, 2009 at 3:57 pm

    Hi, we both posted entries over on DPS but I wasn’t sure if you saw my entry.

    I like your shots a lot and like you, I have taught myself through trial and error. Your first one above is very similar to one I captured but the lightning didn’t strike as often so I had to use a longer shutter speed of 35 seconds (using BULB mode). This meant it picked up some of the orange ambient light from the city a few km away.

    I used an 18-55mm kit lens on my Canon 400D at f/5.6. ISO was 100 and I switched on noise reduction to eliminate as much grain as possible. There were my best two of that evening:

    http://mamalan.deviantart.com/art/The-Passing-Storm-108204643
    http://mamalan.deviantart.com/art/The-Passing-Storm-2-108326281

    Reply
  5.   Till Says:
      December 9th, 2009 at 4:17 pm

    Great pics. Do you know the album “Love over Gold” by the British band Dire Straits? :)

    Reply
  6.   Guest Says:
      May 7th, 2011 at 6:03 am

    These lightning shots are stunning. I have just purchased a Fuji S9500 and am hoping to obtain some lightning photos this Summer, after a storm passed tonight with plenty of lightning I wasn’t ready to achieve any good shots so hopefully with some guidance and adventure play I will, thanks for your shots.

    Reply




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