Jason Persoff
EF3
I learned something odd on the 25th of May. Bill Hark and I were chasing some beautiful (initially) LP storms in NM. As the storms began to coalesce and become outflow dominant, I began snapping photos of the highly electrically active storm. I was shocked (pun not really intended) to see that photo after photo failed to show any bolts when the bolts clearly had dropped perfectly centered (or so) in my frame.
I shot multiple photos, briefly celebrating the victory of well-targeted lightning, only to find that the photos were virtually devoid of lightning strikes on the images.
I scratched my head and moved on before getting munched by a core. Ultimately I later discovered I'd left a polarizing filter on my 35mm. It suddenly occurred to me that lightning may be polarized light. While I'm not certain about this, it fits the explanation the best. In the shot below a strike does appear but without any step leaders or forks. Anyone else have this experience???
I shot multiple photos, briefly celebrating the victory of well-targeted lightning, only to find that the photos were virtually devoid of lightning strikes on the images.
I scratched my head and moved on before getting munched by a core. Ultimately I later discovered I'd left a polarizing filter on my 35mm. It suddenly occurred to me that lightning may be polarized light. While I'm not certain about this, it fits the explanation the best. In the shot below a strike does appear but without any step leaders or forks. Anyone else have this experience???
![polarizedlight.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fhome.comcast.net%2F%7Epersoffj%2Fpolarizedlight.jpg&hash=5c7f395feaf25584d233683c6af6657f)