Lightning strike caught with 28 fps.

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

Today I had a thunderstorm in my area. During the storm, I let several times my digital camera to film the southwestern sky. At one moment, a cloud to ground lightning stroke a kilometer away from me. I was able to capture it. It started as some kind of mini-lightning lasting about 0,03 seconds about 100-150 feet from the house, then it stroke about a kilometer away. A slow motion video of that lightning can be seen here.

However, here is another (stupid?) weather question from me: What could be that small lightning in front of trees just a frame before strike is seen in the background?

I have been having convective skies during past days, I also got some very nice photos from yesterday evening although I did not have any thunderstorms that day. Thunderstorm shot above caused a temperature drop of 9 degrees Celsius. In a total, were two thunderstorms today in my area.

 

[William Coyle]

This is caused by the bright bolt being reflected inside the lens of the camera..This happen with close bolts in every camcorder if the bolt is bright and close..You can check my site out and look at some of the close lightning videos and see the same thing...Keep safe

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

So could it be, that there was lightning out of the camera's view just a few milliseconds before flash on the horizon, but it got reflected inside the lens?

 

[William Coyle]

No it was the main bolt that the camera got that caused that ghost in front of the trees..Just before the main discharge of the main bolt you get this ghosting inside of the camera..I have even had it happen on close bolts on my Nikon D200 because of the same reason but those are rare..

Here is one that is a great example of close lightning and ghosting videos...The video has a bunch of bolts but at 1:15 into the video you will see the close bolt and the ghosting''''

Link Here: http://www.valightning.com/041606videopage.html

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

That's interesting. By the way, I have been reviewing images from a webcam what was running(took 1 shot automatically in every minute) from a battery-powered laptop during that thunderstorm, and here is something interesting it got a minute after a bolt I mentioned above.

It appears like close lightning can alter the picture what camera takes.