Tower Lightning Last Night

[Dan Robinson]

I have brainstormed on this before, and decided that the ideal thing would be an air compressor with a flat nozzle to blast across the front of the lens, providing a shield against drops. The problem would be the loud noise, but if you're not shooting video it would be OK. How to exactly build a rig like that is out of my realm though.

http://stormhighway.com/wvl-060308f.shtml

This is the WVAH site - my favorite, as the tower is close, but just far enough away to not have to point too far up. Those were at F13, zoomed in all the way on a 75-300mm.

There is another tower about 10 miles from this one (for WOWK) that you can literally park right next to. I stopped going to that one, since you have to have the camera completely outside and pointed straight up. Rain will actually start to pool on the lens doing that, not good!

I actually like a single tower rather than a cluster for close-ups, since (as in your shots) it is impossible to know which one is going to get hit. Sometimes there are multiple simultaneous hits, but I've found that only certain storms will do that. Some will be all multiples, while others are all singles.

The most hits I've seen in one storm is 12 (Lexington, Kentucky on 2/5/08, only got 8 of them on film). There is a guy on Flickr that has the CN tower getting hit 17 times in one night.

 

[Chris Allington]

I'm thinking of trying someplace south of it next time, since the winds always seem to work against me looking south. I'm sure there are several good areas in there. I'd like to see if I can get down in there where they are, if one would need a TV station's approval or something. Then just shoot straight up, or slanted vertical with the 10mm. The 10mm gives like a 107 degree angle I think. I just know a person could get something crazy there with that.

Looked like a nice new contruction area with no homes there between Blair High road and 72nd, just south of the interstate. That looked like it would work well for pointing to the nw before the storms got there.

I know there is a gravel pull off on the SE side of it but theres a fence that goes all the way around with a locking gate at that pull off. I don't know who actually owns the site my best bet is KETV since they seem to have the most crap in there. Only time i've seen the towers get hit is when eating at that applebee's haha.

 

[Aaron Anderson]

Wow amazing shots Mike! If only we had some storms down here, I'm dying to get out and try out my new XSI on some lightning shots. I really like the full uncropped photo too, the street lights around the base of the towers and the reflections in the parking lot adds a really cool look.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Yeah that is the one I was talking about, Lexington. That is sweet with the smoke like that.

I tried to stack the 5 I got from the one position, but the differences in lighting near the ground really messes it up. That and the color differences. You'd think one should be able to set the white balance temp the same in RAW conversion and have them all be the same, but they don't work that way.

Compressed air is an interesting idea. You'd probably need a good sized tank to last very long, and yeah, the noise issue. I'm wondering just how much wind speed one would need from a fan to get the job done, even a smaller fan just set close to the lens.

 

[Jayson Prentice]

All this talk has really got me excited for the next big lightning storm... There is an isolated tower southwest of town here that I frequently head down towards just to do any regular lightning shots beings it is fairly flat and open. I think I'll set up and get ready for something right on the tower, been hoping for it for a while, but it hasn't happened yet!

The compressed air idea is nice... But, I think I agree with Mike that you probably don't need something quite that strong to keep the water off the lens. I think that Mustang of yours inhibits you from some nice options... One thing I want to try with my jeep is shooting through the back window, beings the '99 grand cherokee came with the back window that opens separate from the actual liftgate. I'm not sure if it opens up enough though to get a good upwards view...

 

[Aaron Wesson]

Amazing shot Mike! I want to get some lightning shots but have no patience LOL.
The patch tool in PS is great.. you can also mess with the levels to remove the raindrops or just make a new channel.

 

[Patrick Boomer]

Fantastic photos Mike.
Love the last two, beautiful stuff!
Inspiration for next year.

 

[Benjamin Rock]

Those are some awesome shots there!