Your Best Lightning Shot of 2008?

[Jim Saueressig]

David, a word of thought.........

If you want a really awesome picture of a close lightning
strike.....

Put a second camera on repeat shooting or with a lightning trigger on f22 or tighter and put it out about a hundred yards or so from yourself aimed at you while you are photographing storms.

NUFF SAID!!!!

LOL

 

[David Drummond]

It's really not so funny to be struck though. Severe headaches, extreme anxiety attacks, short term memory loss, I was lucky to not be burned, yeah it seems funny because I seem to attract it, but to leave it, it's really not all that funny.

 

[Jim Saueressig]

It's really not so funny to be struck though. Severe headaches, extreme anxiety attacks, short term memory loss, I was lucky to not be burned, yeah it seems funny because I seem to attract it, but to leave it, it's really not all that funny.

Well I should clear up that I don't wish you injured and I am glad you were not hurt or killed. I think you have been real lucky, I have had 3 more very close calls since the one that hit next to my head that started this thread and I know it could take me out and it is quite serious. The fact I mentioned what I did was that being the silly bastard I am I actually wished I had a camera pointed at me when that happened just to see how lucky I was not to get hit.

The funny part is your bad luck with lightning is not so unlike my luck in general and not the fact you were hit by it. I don't want you or anyone else thinking that I thought you being hit in itself is the funny thing.

And if your luck is anything like mine the chance you would ever be hit again while you were taking pics of it happening is non existent since it would be a valuable picture and would probably pay for your chasing for years to come provided you walked away like the other times....

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Well I thought I wouldn't be able to post in this thread because I haven't gotten any good lightning shots this year or any year...until now!

Not my best, but just snapped it about five minutes ago on my backporch and thought it was neat with the sunset.

Got these two among others about a hour earlier just on the other side of my neighborhood.

 

[Dennis Sherrod]

From 04-03-2008 in East Alabama. I may be the only one who sees it, but to me it looks like someone riding a motorcycle, leaning forward toward the handlebars, with the lightning bolt hitting the top of his head.

 

[Jim Saueressig]

Paul, those really aren't that bad. On that second one with your 300 mm tamron was that zoomed out pretty far? I have a few "thick ones" like that when zoomed out far with my tamron 300.

 

[Dick McGowan]

I shot this last night...the tower is the FOX 4 news tower in downtown Kansas City. Derek Shaffer was up probably another 4 stories in the open and captured this strike as well and said he could feel the hair on his neck stand up!

 

[Jim Saueressig]

Nice shot Dick, What is that many block wide light ray coming up behind the gold lit building?

 

[Dick McGowan]

Thanks...those are spotlights! This is right across the street from the new Power and Light District and the Sprint Center. Not too long ago I wouldn't dare to be in this area after dark, and now it's one of the best places to be in Kansas City.

 

[Jim Saueressig]

Thanks...those are spotlights! This is right across the street from the new Power and Light District and the Sprint Center. Not too long ago I wouldn't dare to be in this area after dark, and now it's one of the best places to be in Kansas City.

Ah ok, I couldn't figure out what would do that, I wasn't considering the 20 seconds and possible moving lights. lol

 

[Greg Campbell]

The Az monsoon is just getting started.

Here's my first catch with the new Drebel XT, complete with craptastic 18-55 kit lens. (The CA you see is greatly reduced from the original.) This is not the first lightning of the season, and is hardly a killer shot, but it's something to post while I wait for film exposed over the last few nights to be developed.

I machine-gunned about 100 pictures at f.8 / ~0.6 sec each to catch one bolt. As a die-hard film shooter, I feel terribly wasteful about blazing away, but the technique works great and expands lightning shooting into the relatively bright early-sunset time frame.

Try to ignore the water spots, sloppy cropping, and residual jpeg color blocking (Lots of NeatImage filtering required.)
I'll need to buy a few more cards and start machine gunning RAW. That ought to slaughter some Jigabytes!

Also new to lightning is my 6x6, loaded with Velveeta, which took a similar picture half an hour later. There's nothing like a big transparency on a light table, and I have high expectations for the Bronicasaur's first lightning! More to follow, hopefully.

 

[Brian Emfinger]

Wow so many great shots... here are my contributions:

More Daytime: 1, at Sunset

More Anvil Crawler: 1, 2, 3, 4

Full Storm & Lightning

 

[Zach Chappell]

Not the best but its my first lightning shot

 

[Dan Robinson]

June 3:

http://stormhighway.com/2008/june308a.shtml
http://stormhighway.com/2008/june308b.shtml
http://stormhighway.com/2008/june308c.shtml
http://stormhighway.com/2008/june308f.shtml

June 4:

http://stormhighway.com/2008/june4lt1.shtml
http://stormhighway.com/2008/june4lt2.shtml

June 13:

http://stormhighway.com/blog/p-june1308a.shtml

June 26:

http://stormhighway.com/blog/p-june2608b.shtml

June 28:
http://stormhighway.com/blog/p-june2808a.shtml

 

[Andrew Pritchard]