The secret to shooting great lightning

[Jim Saueressig]

Jeff, I am not sure what you are doing wrong but your results are odd. In comparison to your #1 shot this was a 0.5 second shot at F/16 But at ISO 100 ( I always shoot ISO 100) This was still quite light outside.



#2 is not so bad but was there wind? Wind will give motion blur to your ground objects and lightning strikes that are not pretty instant if the tripod is vibrating. The CG looks ok but the ground looks to be OOF or has motion.

Same OOF or Motion Blur to #3 but OOF is evident in the CG branches.

 

[Jayson Prentice]

The second appears just about perfect, the only negative being the strong winds last night likely caused a little bit of bounce to the foreground. The last one is obviously out of focus, and from what you described is a little weird that it was getting worse slowly but surely. Were you touching the camera at all between pictures? The temperature difference between those likely wouldn't have been enough to throw the focus off that much, seems like either you, the wind? or something was just slightly turning the focus ring.

I am not really sure why the first one is so bright, if the time is correct it was taken ~730p and with cloud cover you should be able to shoot lightning. Definitely shoot at 100 ISO as they will give you extra leeway (no reason to shoot ISO 200), and perhaps go to .5 second and you should be able to shoot lightning without a problem. Earlier this year I shot daytime lightning (~6pm) with 1/4 second and those came without a problem over-exposing.

 

[Greg Campbell]

Jeff, the exposure compensation you speak of will have no impact on anything if you are in manual mode, and are setting aperture and shutter manually. ExComp biases the meter one way or the other, nothing more.

 

[Jayson Prentice]

Jeff, the exposure compensation you speak of will have no impact on anything if you are in manual mode, and are setting aperture and shutter manually. ExComp biases the meter one way or the other, nothing more.

That is what I was thinking as well... I couldn't quite get what you were trying to speak of when you kept mentioning the -5.0 exposure compensation. But, you should be shooting in manual mode and setting the aperture and shutter speed manually... Simply take a few shots quick to determine what your longest shutter speed can be and go from there.

 

[Jim Saueressig]

Simply take a few shots quick to determine what your longest shutter speed can be and go from there.

What he said: ^^ I always with lightning or ISS passovers in evening light first test shoot to find my manual limits and go from there.

Does your lenses or camera have IS or VR? That should be off always on a tripod.

 

[Michael Thompson]

I am afraid I can't add much more than has already been said

I would get away from those street lights however, find a place in your area that has some nice foreground, water is great. It is easy for me as I have the whole Pacific Ocean just one mile away - just lack your storms !

That lightning was close, I would be looking at F8 or even more closed.

Manual focus - I simply line up the infinity focus marks on the lens, I used to go through the elaborate routine of focusing on the distant light, but honestly the markings work just as well.

ISO 100 or lower, I never shoot anything at a high ISO.

I assume you are using a remote trigger?

 

[Jeff Duda]

I am afraid I can't add much more than has already been said

I would get away from those street lights however, find a place in your area that has some nice foreground, water is great. It is easy for me as I have the whole Pacific Ocean just one mile away - just lack your storms !

That lightning was close, I would be looking at F8 or even more closed.

Manual focus - I simply line up the infinity focus marks on the lens, I used to go through the elaborate routine of focusing on the distant light, but honestly the markings work just as well.

ISO 100 or lower, I never shoot anything at a high ISO.

I assume you are using a remote trigger?

I do not have a remote trigger. Not enough money and I guess I'm somewhat old-school/cheap.

The ISO setting on my camera (Nikon D40) does not go below 200 ISO. Too bad, I guess.

I do not have "marks" on my lens to denote where infinity focus is, but I bet that helps immensely. I also do not have liveview. I'm doing everything through the viewfinder.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Does your lenses or camera have IS or VR? That should be off always on a tripod.

I guess I don't know what IS or VR is. *is noob?*

 

[Jim Saueressig]

I guess I don't know what IS or VR is. *is noob?*

Image stabilization (IS) or Vibration reduction (VR) in the camera or in the lenses.

 

[Michael Thompson]

I do not have a remote trigger. Not enough money and I guess I'm somewhat old-school/cheap.

The ISO setting on my camera (Nikon D40) does not go below 200 ISO. Too bad, I guess.

I do not have "marks" on my lens to denote where infinity focus is, but I bet that helps immensely. I also do not have liveview. I'm doing everything through the viewfinder.

Remote Trigger. I'm cheap too ! Less than $5-$10 from Hong Kong on E bay, they work fine, just ask me.


Pity about the lack of 'marks' on the lens, what others have said about manually focusing on a distant light is the way to go then.

I also forgot - RAW, I used to be one of those that thought what a waste of effort, that was until I started shooting RAW and realised that I did not have to put up with pink or red lightning by simply changing the white balance. I know you can do similar post processing with a JPEG in photoshop or similar, but with a JPEG its not the lossless process like RAW. I only shot RAW now.

Good luck !

 

[Greg Campbell]

I think 'remote trigger' means a simple cable shutter release, right?

There's no need whatsoever for some IR/Radio controlled gadget - it's just one more bit of automated BS to to fight....

 

[Jim Saueressig]

I think 'remote trigger' means a simple cable shutter release, right?

Correct....................

 

[Michael Thompson]

I do not have "marks" on my lens to denote where infinity focus is, but I bet that helps immensely. I also do not have liveview. I'm doing everything through the viewfinder.

You can make you own marks with some white adhesive paper, just go outside focus on something a long way off and than mark the fix lens and focus ring.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I also forgot - RAW, I used to be one of those that thought what a waste of effort, that was until I started shooting RAW and realised that I did not have to put up with pink or red lightning by simply changing the white balance. I know you can do similar post processing with a JPEG in photoshop or similar, but with a JPEG its not the lossless process like RAW. I only shot RAW now.

Good luck !

At this last outing I was indeed shooting in RAW. I discovered the post processing utilities of my D40, including superpositioning of images. Unfortunately it only does 2, but even more unfortunately, all of my successful CG shots were taken with the camera pointed at a different environment, so none of them would look very good together.

 

[James Langford]

You can make you own marks with some white adhesive paper, just go outside focus on something a long way off and than mark the fix lens and focus ring.

This is a good idea, but I think you have to be careful depending upon the camera/lens. On the 3 Canon's I've owned, there is no set Infinity point. It changes a lot depending upon the atmospheric conditions, and I also think depending upon where you are zoomed. What I do is have my camera set to center point focus, and then find a light or something in the distance. For most camera lenses, you really don't have to focus on something that is very far away to achieve the infinity focus.

James