I caught a photo of some lighting from my back porch just before a storm last week. It was actually a little harder than I thought it was going to be, and I’m going to have to really practice a bit more in the future.
This strike was photographed using a Canon 5D Mark II with a 70-200mm f/2.8 IS lens. ISO was set at 100 and the exposure was 5 seconds.
Click through on that image for a larger view, or if you would like access to the full size version, I posted it over on Flickr.
Related posts
- Desktop Wallpaper: A Ray of HopeOn Sunday morning I woke up early for a long drive to Houston, TX. The sky was overcast and hinting...
- More Photos of the San Francisco Bay BridgeWhen I was in San Francisco for WordCamp this weekend Dave Curley and I went across the street from our...
- Valentine’s Day Desktop WallpaperHere is a little something for you to sneak onto your loved one’s desktop for Valentine’s day. You’ve got two...
- Lightning Storm Over Frisco, TexasTonight we had another massive lightning storm. We got a lot of these here in Texas, and I was workin...
- OJ’s
Confession Book ‘If I Did It’ Leaked! Here’s How To Get It…Folks, this is breaking news. If you are going to try this I’d say you have to do so pretty... - Lightning Doodle Project, Pika Pika StyleThis has to be one of the most creative and mesmerizing things I’ve ever seen. These artists create this motion...
- My “Top 5″ Photoshop World Photo (Shown During the Keynote!) For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, I’m at Photoshop World in Las Vegas this week...
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter
How man how do you get hold of such rare sights with such professionalism?
That’s sweet, John! So did you have to take it ….like…sort of – before it hit? Kind of? Or is that super badass camera of yours just instant? That’s a really great shot!!
Lisa,
I actually used a combination of mainly two things to achieve this shot:
Beyond that, it was just blind luck that I happened to get a flash during one of the exposures. Now that I know how to do it though, I’ll refine and improve on the technique the next time it looks like rain.
John
So how many pictures does that mean you ended up taking in that one setting?
I took over 100 to capture this one. So you figure that’s like at least 1,000 seconds. That was about all of my window of opportunity before it was gone.
John
I remember standing out in the field that is my backyard for about a half an hour one evening with the camera on the tripod the aperture pushed all the way up and the ISO pushed down taking 30 and 40 second exposures trying to get a good lightning capture…out of a couple of hundred shots I might have gotten 3 with good lightning flashes. It is kinda funny how most flashes happen in a direction other than the one the camera is pointing toward.
The best of the bunch I posted here…After The Storm II
Thanks for showing me up Gary, yours is way better than mine! ;-)
hehehe
John P.
How do you always get these great shots? I wish I had the luck you have when it comes to being in the right place for pictures.
It’s impressive that your camera didn’t get wet. Nice photos.
Great, unusual picture. It’s really difficult to catch a lightning.
That is a rare photo. I work in the same kind of activity but i supose that was very hard to caught. Well done John.