Your Best Lightning Shot to date...

[Jason Weingart]

Best of 2010

These are my three. I have only been chasing for a little over a year. And unless you chase in Florida I am not one of the "ones" that have been clogging up the roads.

The first two were taken about 100 feet away from one another in a 15 minute span of the most brilliant lightning I have ever seen on April 25, 2010 over Daytona Beach, FL.

The last is a shot that I worked my tail off to get, chasing five cells in about 10 hours...awful day, nothing good, just wanted to go home, but stuck with it, and I'm so glad I did.

 

[John Gnuechtel]

Staccato Lightning from Saint Joe by John Gnuechtel, on Flickr

Got lucky with a front yard shot earlier this Summer. This happened on the evening of July 24th, from the southeast side of Saint Joseph, IL, facing due west. We actually had two separate rounds of lightning storms that day, with this being the second.

 

[Bill Doms]

Best from this year. June 25 2010 Blue Earth county MN. Really nice zits display out the back side. Few fireflies also.

 

[Dan Melby]

Not that it even compares to most of the post on this thread, but here is my best lightning shot of the year.
It was taken on 7-19-10 north of Princeton, MO not long before it dropped a tornado 5 miles East of Princeton after dark.

 

[DRMabe]

My doesn't compare with the ones on in this thread, but here's my best so far. Near Winston Salem NC spring of 2010. Hard to find shelter to get in out of the rain and unobstructed places to shoot without trees everywhere.

 

[Jason Foster]

My best Lightning shot to date on the new Canon 7D.

Then I cropped it:

The extremely weak, high based, low topped, low VIL, warm front associated line of storms that came through Maryland was a prolific lightning producer. I got more CG lightning shots than I have ever in the past during one storm. It only took ~ 1.5 hours to get 50+ CG shots. Not the most prolific visible CG storm I've seen, but probably in the top 5. It was rather weird, since it was out of such a weak storm.

Request: I'm trying to get the 'smart sharpen' bit right in photoshop. For the pros...how is the sharpness looking...too much?

 

[Tim Shriver]

Very nice Jason, a 3peat....

Tim

 

[Olivier Staiger]

wow, wonderful collection of lightning images !

here are a few of my favourites :

http://www.wetter-foto.de/images/upload/orig/YE0YWp.jpg

next one : a very lucky strike, exposure time was just 1/125 of a second, it was at dusk, I was shooting handheld for the cloud ( there was a slight potential for a waterspout to form ) and the lightning bolt occured totally by surprise ( it was the only bolt on that "storm" ).

http://www.wetter-foto.de/images/upload/orig/fmho2c.jpg

another lucky strike, last year in Iowa, shooting in daytime at only 1/2 second exposure time
http://www.klipsi.ch/blitze/IMG_2645.jpg

another lucky strike, aiming at a crane in front of my home, ka-boom !
http://www.klipsi.ch/blitze/hitcrane.jpg

another nice one at dusk
http://www.wetter-foto.de/images/upload/orig/009229.jpg
crop http://www.wetter-foto.de/images/upload/orig/007626.jpg

 

[Christopher E. Kincaid]

Here are a couple from Sunday's storms in IL

 

[Dan Robinson]

I've always been primarily a lightning photographer when it comes to chasing goals. Upward lightning has been a recent favorite (towers, skyscrapers or any tall object):



My lightning gallery has more image highlights from the past 18 years.

 

[Steven Howell]

Shot this off my back porch last year, ready to get out there and get some new material!

 

[Olivier Staiger]

lightning video clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfoIX_xdPr4

 

[Kara Jones]

Amazing shots everyone!
This is my best lightning shot so far, it is from last summer. I can't wait until this summer though since I have finally upgraded my camera gear.

I love these 2 as well

 

[Brian Mette]

Video capture from May 19th, 2010.

 

[Paul Hadfield]

Awesome thread, incredible shots! Haven't been able to top my avatar pic from June 2007 but here's some push button magic from 2005.

Those were the days...