Your Best Lightning Shot to date...

[Tom Stolze]

Probably my favorite due to it being handheld....very lucky to catch it.

 

[Bill Hark]

Lightning, Richmond Virginia, September 2014.

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

Don't know if this is my best, but certainly a top 10. I'll have to hunt down more...I have thousands of lightning shots.

(was a bummer my lens got sprinkled on just before this bolt)

 

[Beth F.]

Another lightning shot of mine, this one is not as spectacular as the other one I posted earlier.


July 6, 2013. Storm was in St. Marys, PA at the time. This was meant to be a calibration image for my then-newly-acquired, secondhand Kodak Z712 IS. Took it on manual setting mode and screwed up the ISO, in my opinion.

 

[Jason Foster]

TAMPA BAY SUNSHINE SKYWAY BRIDGE. Massive Anvil crawler. All night the lightning was hitting and the road signs adjacent were making zappy noises from the sharp ends. Of course I was on the old bridge over the salt water. This particular Canon 7D had failure afterwards and later came back from the dead (twice now). I'm convinced this lightning turned it into a zombie camera (keeps coming back from the dead). This is not the full res. It is the first ever professional print I order for.

 

[Beth F.]

Sick shot, Jason!

 

[Jason Foster]

Sick shot, Jason!

Thanks Beth!

 

[Greg Campbell]

Beth, what settings are you using?

Try the Basic Lightning Recipe:
Manual mode
Tripod
Find a pretty scene, with as little horizon clutter as possible.
Focus at infinity.
ISO 100
F/8 (Adjust according to distance and brightness.)
Adjust shutter speed to match scene brightness. After dark, go with your camera's max, 16 seconds.
Machine-gun away and hope for the best.

 

[Beth F.]

Beth, what settings are you using?

Try the Basic Lightning Recipe:
Manual mode
Tripod
Find a pretty scene, with as little horizon clutter as possible.
Focus at infinity.
ISO 100
F/8 (Adjust according to distance and brightness.)
Adjust shutter speed to match scene brightness. After dark, go with your camera's max, 16 seconds.
Machine-gun away and hope for the best.

I set my shutter delay to 15 seconds on my Kodak and 10 seconds on my Polaroid. I didn't adjust the ISO on the GE, but turned it up way too high on the Kodak. Manual mode was used on my Kodak, and Night Mode on the Polaroid.

I'm always learning how to use a camera and the settings every time. I have tried the multi-frame shooting technique once, but never really got good results, imo.

Thanks for your question, Greg.

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

August 2013.

 

[Laura Duchesne]

Surprised I haven't posted anything in here yet (that I can tell). Lots of great imagery here!

Lightning illuminating a developing shelf cloud. May 21, 2014 near Listowel, Ontario.

 

[Michael Thompson]

Notice a few shots from the Nebraska 26th May 2013 storm. I was moving towards the Arcadia storm, but the updraft of the Brewster storm caught my visual attention instead. After it got too dark I found a hilltop just north of Sargant, where to the south the LP was still firing, and to the north the Brewster cell.

The first is a image stack of 3 images

 

[Patrick Martin]

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

CO is so good for lightning enthusiasts.

 

[Matt Jorgensen]

In OKC this evening.