Your Best Lightning Shot to date...

[Laney Cole]

While I was capturing a severe warned storm on my iPhone, I managed to catch a remarkable old-fashioned backyard lightning bolt in action. It was quite a sight - nothing like the beautiful classics shared on this post, but was no less stunning to me. The darn thing almost broke my phone, but I was so excited that I was yelling throughout the house, "I caught a gorgeous CG." Enjoy!

 

[Jonathan Scrogham]

Lightning photography with an iPhone is pretty terrible, but this one turned out all right. I’ll probably invest in a DSLR or mirrorless camera later down the road.

 

[Mike Dorame]

Almost looks like some ball lightning up in there.

 

[Christine Veerkamp]

For me, not located in the USA and limited to my activity in my near-home Area, I had the rare opportunity to chase a Storm with somebody. This was my first Chase ever, and it became an experience I will never forget.

Also a little Video experiment I did I got a big CG surprise

 

[James K]

Finally got around to looking through/editing (& preparing for YouTube) some stuff from last month.
This one is a frame-grab from video taken evening of Aug 21.
Wasn't a real active or large storm, but did drop a few nice CG's

 

[Steve Frederick]

Lightning captures. April 17, 2025 Mankato Minnesota

 

[Dan Robinson]

Great to see this 15-year thread still going. Here are some since I last posted. It took me 10 years and ~150 attempts, but I finally got the Gateway Arch lightning strike still photo I was after on July 19, 2020. Th Arch was struck 3 times that night. I captured another on June 30, 2023. I have at total of 6 now on my various cameras since 2014.



My obsession now is shooting slow motion lightning footage with a Chronos 1.4 high speed camera. It does 1,500 fps at 720p resolution, and faster framerates via sensor cropping. I've been shooting mainly at 1,500 fps @ 720p and 6,002 fps @ 640 x 354. It can go up to 40,000 fps, but the frame size at anything higher than 10,000 fps is too small to be of much use for shooting lightning. I've done a few shoots at 10,034 fps (496 x 268 resolution) but the exposure times are so short that even bright daylight scenes are almost pitch black, and lightning needs to be close to show up well.

Here are a few favorites:

From the 2020 storm in St. Louis - captured 2 of the 3 Arch strikes at 1,500 fps and the third on the DSLR:

 

[Markus Pfister]

These two taken on October '23 in Sestri Levante, Italy.

 

[G Diaz]

Backyard shots.

 

[Mikayla Norris]

I forgot that this thread existed, and so I'm just now getting around to sharing this one from a supercell on 13 June 2023 near Martha, OK. This was a single 30 second exposure, f/7.1, ISO 100 using a Canon Rebel T2i on a tripod (obviously). It is entirely unedited. I'm very proud of this one.

 

[Laney Cole]

Low based NJ storms, a favorite day from 2024. (Screenshots from MOV on Canon T7)

 

[James K]

Frame-grab from a storm (not severe) I videoed on last weekend (the 25th).
Most of the lightnings that even showed on video were just flashes in the sky...but this one came down perfectly placed in the center of the view.

 

[WPenn]

My wife while we were out chasing on May 16th 2925. This was taken between Berea and Paintlick Ky.