Your First Lightning Shot

[John Hudson]

OK, gang, let's dust off some of those old files (or negatives) and dig out your very first lightning shot, no matter how grainy, unrefined or amateurish it might be (weren't we all there once?).

Don't forget to mention a brief description of the circumstances, the kind of camera you used and what prompted you to go out and start shooting.

I'll get us started. It was late August 2005, and I'd just purchased my first digital camera, a point-and-shoot Canon A-40, I believe it was 4 meg. Humble beginnings, to say the least.

We had a nice lightning storm ongoing outside, but the rain had quit so I went to a park just a few blocks away and set up my tripod. I took around ten exposures before I captured the one you see below. I felt so lucky to get 3 cg's in the same shot!

Today, I'm totally addicted to the beauty of the bolt.

 

[Zachary Lassiter]

Mine was actually very very good.... it just destroyed my cheap camera (it wouldn't turn on the next day).... it was featured on the local news.

 

[Jeremy Jones]

My first lightning shot, was TOTALLY beginners luck! I was out walking my bulldog before work on the morning after I first purchased my DSLR! I saw my first CG barrage!

This is shot that totally hooked me into Lightning photography!

 

[Patrick Marsh]

In 2007 I was attending the European Conference on Severe Storms in Trieste, Italy. The conference dinner took place on the roof of a castle that overlooked the Mediterranean Sea and the city of Trieste. During the dinner I noticed some lightning associated with a storm moving off the mountains. I leaned over to a colleague and said, did you see the lightning? He responded, "There's no lightning." After a few minutes of light-hearted debate, he responded with "Then go get me a picture of it."

I'd never taken lightning photographs before so I didn't know what I was getting into. I didn't have a tripod or anything, so my camera was resting on the edge of the castle and I was using 30 second exposures. I was not having any luck, as the lightning was pretty crappy. On what I decided was going to be my last attempt, the best lightning of the night occurred. No more than 10 seconds after the shutter closed, the floodgates opened up and it poured.

This was my first, and to date, only attempt at lightning photography. I don't think I could get a better photograph, so I decided to retire while ahead.

 

[Jason Foster]

You are really going to make me go digging aren't you...damn you for starting this thread...LOL.

 

[Zachary Lassiter]

You are really going to make me go digging aren't you...damn you for starting this thread...LOL.

Maybe you can use the picture you find as your avatar

 

[Zack Cooper]

my first lightning shot came completely by accident... I was just taking a picture of nice storm structure and got a good lightning bolt in the pic.. unfortunately.. I lost the picture along with my camera when it got rained on.

 

[Jason Foster]

Maybe you can use the picture you find as your avatar

Ewww....BURN! I know...I piss everyone off with my avatar, and that I never post hardly any of my pictures. In this case it requires going to storage for my photo albums from back in the day. I need the excuse though.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

This took me a while to figure out... I thought I had to shoot with high sensitivity film. I couldn't figure out why all my negatives were washed out. BTW I think this was with 1600 ISO film.

I have since learned...

P.S. I started chasing because I wanted a lightning photo. Little did I know what this 'hobby' would turn into.

 

[Zachary Lassiter]

Ewww....BURN! I know...I piss everyone off with my avatar, and that I never post hardly any of my pictures. In this case it requires going to storage for my photo albums from back in the day. I need the excuse though.

I'll tell you what, I'll make you a much more sexy looking avatar this week sometime. I need an excuse to learn photoshop some more.

 

[Rob H]

Deer Trail, CO 6/10/10. There was still a lot of light, so I kept as much light out of the lens as possible and shot with a 3-4 second exposure. I ended up taking ~200 rapid fire shots like this and while I got some better lightning, this was truly my first.

 

[Dann Cianca]

I recall getting a little spark of lightning with my dad's SLR camera some time in the mid 90's, but I haven't seen that photo in years. The photo above was taken in 2003 in Butte, MT with an SLR film camera balanced on my door window frame. There were several return strokes which made manually hitting the shutter possible. This was the first picture of lightning that I had taken since beginning chasing occasionally in Montana in 1997.

 

[James Langford]

Very much beginners luck on this one:

Shot with my old Sony F707 camera, which I still have and use occasionally today. I remember being so excited with this bolt that I jump up and almost knocked over the camera. ;-)

 

[Zack Hargrove]

Lucky Shot... but my first and so far one of only about 4. This was over Asheville, NC

 

[Adam Lucio]

I dont have a fancy pants camera for capturing lightning but I do have a cheap camera with a fireworks show setting that sometimes works. This was the first such occurrence back in 06.