Your Best Lightning Shot to date...

[Jeff Wright]

I want to see other camera tech.

If the GoPro isn’t fried, perhaps heavy tint could reveal the core of the bolt.

Looks like they don’t need rockets anymore

Photo: Lightning was bent by powerful laser, a scientific first

The technology offers hope lasers could one day be used as lightning rods to protect people from storms.

www.businessinsider.com

That could be weaponized…an expendable drone fires a laser over the top of a storm towards a target to induce a strike much more powerful than the laser itself.

 

[gdlewen]

I want to see other camera tech.

If the GoPro isn’t fried, perhaps heavy tint could reveal the core of the bolt.

Looks like they don’t need rockets anymore

Photo: Lightning was bent by powerful laser, a scientific first

The technology offers hope lasers could one day be used as lightning rods to protect people from storms.

www.businessinsider.com

That could be weaponized…an expendable drone fires a laser over the top of a storm towards a target to induce a strike much more powerful than the laser itself.

That's pretty cool. I know that high-power femtosecond lasers are generally used in vacuums due to ionization by the high electric fields around the pulse. I never thought to use it to create a charged corridor to guide leaders. (We did create lightning--of sorts--when I worked at the NEC Research Institute by focusing a picosecond laser in air, but that was a rookie mistake. Every time the laser fired a spark formed in mid-air at the focus of the lens. That was cool but this is cool-er). It gets better; check this out:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1400111

As for the GoPro--I wonder if the next generation will have better dynamic range so there is not so much "blowout" of the lowest few hundred meters of channel. I have tried Hydrogen-alpha filters, crossed polarizers, and neutral density filters for daylight lightning stills with little success. Maybe others have the "key to success" in that area, without using video. There are a lot of good daylight pictures out there but getting the success rate during the day that you can get at night is something I just don't know how to achieve.

 

[Steve Frederick]

Wow!
I only went through the first 2 pages & many spectacular photos.

Mine aren't anywhere near those, but the thread is titled 'your best lightning shot'

 

[gdlewen]

Wow!
I only went through the first 2 pages & many spectacular photos.

Mine aren't anywhere near those, but the thread is titled 'your best lightning shot'

@Steve Frederick: Every "next lighting picture" will be your favorite, I think. That's the way it is with me.

P.S. If any of these are video frames, try single-stepping through the frame sequence to see if you caught any stepped leaders. I've been surprised at how often that occurs. I just think it's cool we can capture leaders with normal video, something you normally associate with streak cameras (old-school) or high-speed video cameras (very expensive and which I hope to have one fine day.)

 

[T Wells]

Early afternoon monsoon thunderstorm near Ruidoso, NM

Nikon Z6 with a Z 24-70 2.8 lens.

ISO 100, f5.6, 1/125s

 

[T Wells]

Late afternoon monsoon thunderstorm near Page, AZ. The Glen Canyon dam is in the foreground. This storm drifted by with only an occasional strike. I have quite a few taken at night but the daytime shots are more more prized by me. I had been out on the Grand Canyon hoping to get a daytime lightning photo there which is a bucket list item for me. No luck on that trip since we opted to visit the north rim on that particular visit. The best shot at getting one was no good since the storm formed right over me and moved northeast away from the canyon.

Nikon Z6, Z 24-70 2.8 lens

ISO 100, f5.6, 1/320s

 

[gdlewen]

View attachment 24578
Early afternoon monsoon thunderstorm near Ruidoso, NM

If I could ask one thing of those posting pictures, it would be to provide some details of the camera type and settings. Just that much additional detail would be of great value as an instructional aid.

BTW--I do not mean to single out @T Wells or anyone in particular. I just love those shots and (and others posted here) and am curious about the settings used to take them....

 

[gdlewen]

I really value the context behind the experience that wraps (should wrap) the pictures we post. I realize that I may be in the minority here.

Here's an example. This picture was taken just south of the Rillito River on North Columbus Blvd, in Tucson Az, on August 8, 1979. (There: I have written Geoff is Pretty Old in signs that all can read from Rivendell to the mouths of Anduin.)



Looking: East
Camera: Mamiya C330f 80mm lens
Film: Kodak 120mm ASA 100 B&W Film
Exposure: Bulb

I was studying and not planning to go out that evening. But this one sneaked up on me and I only had time to grab my camera and run out to the road, staying out until the rain began.

P.S. I absolutely despise power lines unless they are intentionally part of the composition, but there was no time to get clear of them.

 

[WPenn]

Started photographing storms last June, I was completely new to photography. Camera used is a Canon EOS 40D. My best lightning photo, as of now, is from July 24th, in Clark County, Kentucky. 1 single exposure. This is the original jpg, as being extremely new to photography I didn't save photos as RAW, or JPG & RAW. Really regret that now, and save both formats. Second photo is edited version.

A few of my most recent photos taken in Central Kentucky on 3/14/24.

 

[gdlewen]

Started photographing storms last June, I was completely new to photography. Camera used is a Canon EOS 40D. My best lightning photo, as of now, is from July 24th, in Clark County, Kentucky. 1 single exposure. This is the original jpg, as being extremely new to photography I didn't save photos as RAW, or JPG & RAW. Really regret that now, and save both formats. Second photo is edited version.

A few of my most recent photos taken in Central Kentucky on 3/14/24.

Winchester,Ky.jpg gets my vote.

 

[Greg Campbell]

One of the better from recent years. Lightning over the Mustang Mountains in Elgin, Az.

A7s with a 50mm or 35mm Rokinon lens and 6 stop ND filter since there was quite a bit of light in the sky near sunset. Shooting with the electronic shutter in continuous mode at a shutter speed of around 1/2 second. This is pretty much 'machine gunning' the lightning into submission! I get home with thousands of files to scan through. Fortunately, I can use Irfanview and other photo apps to play a very fast movie of the RAW images. At ~8 FPS, the shots with lightning jump out quite nicely. The up-side to machine-gunning is that I usually catch all of the branching stepped-leader tree as it discharges early in the event. Using a trigger often misses some of this structure. The downside is occasional torn frames due to the ~30ms rolling shutter on the A7s. I hope to get an A9-1, with ~6ms shutter, or maybe (?!) plonk for the A9-3. The A9-3, with global shutter and pre-capture, should be exceedingly good at lightning stills and video.

 

[Tony Laubach]

Best night of lightning photography that I've had since that May 2020 evening in Kansas. This was taken back on Tax Night in eastern Nebraska on a series of sub-severe storms that moved north across I-80 between Lincoln and Omaha. The CG output on these storms was insane, up to 10 bolts per minute. I'm several days removed and still haven't processed all the images.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Tony, those are fantastic! Definitely the best thing that happened anywhere that day. The one with the tower strike is particularly interesting. That is a single exposure, correct? If so, that’s a truly rare event to have an upward flash associated with a negative CG event!