shuttervita

Many thanks Ian. Glad you enjoyed this capture. I'm still photographing lighting in an "old school" manner which is relatively simple. In my case, it is always after sunset and at night so the camera settings I use only vary by shutter speed. As such, I always use an ISO of 100 and an aperature setting of F-5.6 and never deviate from those 2 parameters. Just focus your lens to infinity or on something very far away and in most cases you'll be properly focused. After the sun has set, I usually experiment with shutterspeeds of 1 second ans as it gets darker I can lengthen that shutterspeed out to make it longer. I've reached a point where I like shutterspeeds of 15 seconds to 25 seconds but some conditions make it possible to use exposure times of 30 to 90 seconds depending on what the weather is doing and what effects one hopes to achieve. I only go for those real long exposure times when it is dark and I want not only cloud to ground strikes but also want clouds that are lightning up internally. With all that said, lightning is a great deal of fun to photograph when done from a position of relative safety. A good rule of thumb is "if you can hear the thunder, you are potentially too close to the action". The other thing that lightning requires is a great deal of patience and battery power as lightning photography is a crap shoot most of the time and nature almost never works with me. I've spent many hours set up for a shoot and come home empty handed. One more consideration is a piece of technology that I've never used that can open your camera's shutter automatically when it senses a flash of lightning. In any case, lightning photography is not technically challenging or difficult. It just takes a lot of time, tiral and error and patience as some shoots are great and some are horrible. :)

Many thanks Valerie. :)

You are indeed very very kind Laureen. Thanks! :)

Many thanks Paul. Glad you enjoyed this capture. I find lightning a lot of fun to capture but some nights it can be very frustrating as nature almost never works with me.

Your images are most impressive. I find I miss the flash or it behind me, I am sure nature has a sense of humour.

Many thanks Paul. You are very kind! Indeed...nature has a twisted sense of humor that keeps one on high alert when attempting these types of captures. On more than one occasion the unexpected has happened to me where the weather patterns change and then lightning bolts start happening behind me or happening in more than one direction. :)