Photography of distant lightning with a zoom lens

[John Farley]

On the evening of September 19, 2008, I observed some rather distant lightning from Santa Fe looking at a storm that was about equidistant between there and Albuquerque. (I later verified this by looking at lightning strike imagery, confirming that this lightning was 25-30 miles away.) I decided to experiment at photographing this distant lightning with a 70-300 mm zoom lens - this picture was taken at 110 mm:

More can be seen at:

http://www.johnefarley.com/distantlightning91908.htm

I think this worked because of the high-based nature of the storm and the clear air and lack of haze around the storm (both typical for the southwest). I am wondering if others have similar pics - if so, I'd love to see some more in this thread.

 

[Dan Robinson]

These were over 100 miles away:
http://stormhighway.com/blog/june1108c.shtml

 

[Verne Carlson]

I do almost all of my lightning photography with a zoom lens. These were from my house looking out past Denver - so maybe ~50 miles away? It's very easy to catch these since you aren't right in the middle of the lightning and it's easy to point the camera and shoot away.

http://stormchaserco.blogspot.com/2008/08/lightning-over-brighton-co.html

 

[Paul Hadfield]

Congratulations John, you are very fortunate.

On the topic of distant lightning, I had a few scores this past summer. Not as nice as everyone else's but at 80 miles away, I was happy.

http://pawleewurx.blogspot.com/2008/06/storm-over-peoria-il.html

 

[Doug Raflik]

I wasnt zoomed in, but this is heavily cropped. No clue how far away it is. The lights are one of the prisons in my town.