tips on taking storm pictures

[Angie K Holliday]

I have a new camera that I'm still learning to use, but I was wondering if anyone could give me some tips to getting great cloud pictures. My camera is pretty much like a DSLR, so I can set up pretty much anything I want the way I want it, I just don't have much experience with cloud pictures. Would love to know how you all get such great shots of clouds when you're out chasing, even if I just take pictures of clouds as they pass by my house.

Thanks!

 

[Hank Baker]

The first thing I would suggest is take your camera off of the fully auto mode and set your main control dial to "P" which stands for program mode. When using this setting you are still letting the camera auto adjust the aperture and shutter speed, but in enables you to change a few simple settings like your ISO speed, and you can control whether the flash comes up or not.
I would shoot in "P" and control your shutter speed by raising or lowering your ISO speed. Depending on what camera you have depends on what the highest ISO you may want to use. Generally 400 iso is a good all around setting.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

I recommend a tripod too, sometimes you can leave the shutter open for a little longer to allow more light in, you will need a tripod for this otherwise the pictures will have motion blur in it. Though this can be tough when you have 40+ MPH inflow winds shaking your tripod and camera all around.

As Hank said, full manual mode is the way to go. The problem with auto mode is because we're in darker than normal conditions the camera will want to use flash, if you're on a dirt road or it's raining then you're going to have horrible reflection off those particles of dust or moisture.

 

[Grant Gutierrez]

Take a basic digital photography class to learn the basics of working your camera and composition. Full manual mode is the way to go. When taking cloud pictures, make sure you place the horizon in the lower third of the picture and try to get any distractions out of the picture unless it helps the over feel of the photo. On a bright day shooting clouds, one of your best friends is going to be a polarizer. It helps eliminate glare so it will make cloud features pop. Tripods are a good friend when you want to get tack sharp pictures, even at high shutter speeds.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

On a bright day shooting clouds, one of your best friends is going to be a polarizer. .

Is there a trick to using polarizers? Since we're on the topic of photography.. I have a polarizer and have had nothing but horrible luck with it, generally what happens is the overall image seems darker, or the ground will be dark and sky will look ok. I guess what I'm saying is I can't get a good balance of both the sky and ground. If that makes sense, heh.

 

[Angie K Holliday]

I'm learning a lot about my camera and everything, just thought that maybe there were some specific tips to getting the best pictures of clouds. I never use the full auto mode, cause I don't like not having any control, that's why I got the camera I got in the first place! Thanks for your suggestions, and I'll do some more reading and see what else I can learn!

 

[Angie K Holliday]

Thank you Paul, I really appreciate your opinion and I will keep those things in mind. I'm doing more reading to try to understand it all better! Unfortunately there aren't many opportunities to get storm pictures here when the storms keep missing me!

 

[Melanie Kern-Favilla]

Learn Photoshop online

If you're willing to pay a little bit for excellence, take a look here:

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This website has professionally-made video tutorials on everything from Photoshop to Lightroom to Illustrator to HDR....

The videos are incredible; very easy to follow and understand. It cost $19.99/month for access to all classes on the site. If you're an educator or student, it's $14.99/month. But guess what? They don't seem to ask for proof of your status, so........

You'd pay a lot more for a digital photography course, so at $14.99, it's a steal.

Also, if you're interested in posting your photos, Adobe has come out with a great new website for posting AND editing ONLINE!

And it's FREE (2GB Storage)!

http://www.photoshop.com/express

Melanie

 

[Brett Adair]

I've just bought a Rebel myself and I am playing with the settings. About to attempt some daytime lightning photography. I may try to get in between a few storms and do some shooting. Mike Hollingshead and Dick McGowan's tutorials are masterful. I tested some of Mike's stuff out last night and it worked like a charm in low light. I know nothing about digital photography and if I can do it I know anyone can!

Now, what I want to know is what are the advantages of shooting in RAW? I know that you can do some things. I have the Rebel XT and have the Canon software installed, but I don't really have a clue how to do anything in RAW. A little help there would be much appreciated.

 

[Angie K Holliday]

I've just bought a Rebel myself and I am playing with the settings. About to attempt some daytime lightning photography. I may try to get in between a few storms and do some shooting. Mike Hollingshead and Dick McGowan's tutorials are masterful. I tested some of Mike's stuff out last night and it worked like a charm in low light. I know nothing about digital photography and if I can do it I know anyone can!

Now, what I want to know is what are the advantages of shooting in RAW? I know that you can do some things. I have the Rebel XT and have the Canon software installed, but I don't really have a clue how to do anything in RAW. A little help there would be much appreciated.

What tutorials are you referring to? Just wondering if there's something somewhere that I need to be checking out!

 

[James Langford]

Now, what I want to know is what are the advantages of shooting in RAW? I know that you can do some things. I have the Rebel XT and have the Canon software installed, but I don't really have a clue how to do anything in RAW. A little help there would be much appreciated.

My advice. Shoot in RAW every chance you get. The files are bigger, they take longer to work with, but they can save you so much in the end. Have you downloaded Canon's Digital Photo Professional? It is a great RAW editting program. I personally use Adobe Camera RAW, which comes with PS.

Here's a few benefits of using RAW:
* Greater flexibility in shot exposure. You can gain +/- 1 EV from RAW without side effects
* Working in 16 bit mode yields much better results than 8 bit
* Full White Balance control with the RAW file
* Ability to create HDR images by extracting -1/0/+1 EV images from a single RAW
* No JPG processing is done on the image, so you have much more flexibility in working with the image

Some downsides:
* Files are large, and take more space
* Files require more CPU and memory to process on a computer
* RAW workflow is more complicated, and requires more time to complete


I resisted the RAW change for a long time, as I wrongly felt that JPG could give me the same results. After going back and comparing, RAW has JPG beat hands down. The change took me a long time, mainly to adjujst my workflow to account for the RAW processing steps. However, I'll never look back now.

James

 

[Heather Moser]

On the subject of filters, do you any of you use graduated ND filters or do you tend to stick to just the basic polarizers?

 

[Steve Polley]

Where can I find Dick's and Mike's tutorials?

 

[Eric Flescher]

Links for Tutorials

Steve and all

Here are some links to tutorials I found

http://www.underthemeso.com/blog/?page_id=267
http://stackedplates.blogspot.com/2007/10/processing-storm-photo-for-people-as.html

::

Where can I find Dick's and Mike's tutorials?

 

[Brett Adair]

I would love to see some tutorials on taking lightning photos during the DAY. I wanted to attempt this today, but I have no clue how or if it's even possible.