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.

 

[Brendon Lindsey]

Embarrassing, but hey I was 16

First Lightning shot ever, for a fact. I was 16 and was so stoked I sent it in to the news and they showed it and talked about it and mentioned my name, Hah I even recorded the broadcast. I have come a ways since then
This was taken in Cordes Lakes, AZ... (Northern)

 

[Ben Tillotson]

My first and one of my favorites... taken near Heartwell, NE.

 

[Jeff Bartlett]

Chalk me up in the "Beginner's Luck" category...back on October 19, 2005 the same day I received my first DSLR, a Nikon D100 I got from my brother. It all started with a great storm out by Alva that I ruined about 50% of my pictures because I didn't have time to get to know the camera and blurred out many of the images. On the way home, new storms were developing at Hwy 51 and I-35, and I stopped to attempt some shots. After a few blurry shots of the moon, I dialed things in and got this...

 

[Andrew Stevens]

For a good couple of days I didn't even realize I got a lightning bolt on this picture, I was just shooting at the sunset where I had been seeing a few random strikes here and there. Then a couple days later, I went over my pictures again and went "Wow!" lol.

Last night was my first night going out to try and get some lightning shots, i'm new at this so im not sure what settings I should be using or how much exposure to give it or any of that. Plus I was in a kinda bright area which affected my first couple of photos. After seeing that I made sure to stand in the way of the light to help it some.

I just posted this up on my blog last night...

Working On Lightning Pictures

 

[Scott Sims]

This was a totally accidental catch on a very lightning active supercell near Wayne City, IL on June 19, 2009. This was only a 1/25th second exposure on Landscape auto setting. It wasn't until this year that I have started using my DSLR correctly(without using auto settings) and also doing real long bulb-exposure type lightning photos. A couple of my favorites from this year are also posted in the "best lightning shots" thread.

 

[Mike Deep]

April 2002 in San Antonio, TX. I had an Olympus OM-1 and Zuiko 50/1.8 propped up in a window on a Wal-Mart tripod and was holding the shutter down by hand. I've forgotten where I got the idea to try shooting lightning, it was probably from Gene Moore's site.

 

[Aaron Locke]

7/25/10 West of Mulvane, KS. Nothing spectacular but it is my first.

After a little tweeking.

 

[Charles Kuster]

I took this picture on June 4, 2008 from near Elwood, NE. It was the first picture I took that night, and the only one that had any lightning in it!

f3.2, ISO 200, 13 second exposure

 

[Stephen Locke]

Konza Prairie, 1989

Konza Prairie, 1989