These are great shots. I think I like the first one the most as the skyline and the trees where the light actually splits into them is amazing. The heavy feel of the sky and tress set it off perfectly. Even the detail in the chain of the brightest strike. Great shots! Thanks as I liked seeing those.
Glad you are enjoying them... a couple from tonight... Granted, one's a sunset but I thought I'd throw it in...
The first one looks as if it forms a face. There is a mouth formation in the lower cloud cover and the two pockets of energy from the flash form eyes. It is amazing. The second one I love. It as is there is an orb of light and it is suspended by a pocket of energy from below. It also supports a duck in the clouds. I see a beautiful mallard. I loved these.
Awesome shots!! Ive been trying to get good lighting pics for a long time, and im never fast enough! We had some nice drawn out lighting today and Im hoping I finally got some good shots, dont have the energy to put the pics on my computer now and look though. How do you get them? Are you lucky enough to be in an area that gets lots of long lighting, or are you and your camera just that quick?
Thank you- glad you like them... Much depends on what time the lightning is around. For high resolution daytime shots I have to count a bit on luck and use the continuous shooting mode on my camera. I almost always use the manual setting and set the focus to maximum length (infinite) and hold down the shutter button. This method results in volumes of "duds". While I did not use a tripod this time I highly recommend doing so. For night time photos I use timed exposure... usually 15 seconds. I set the camera to f8 and iso to 200... this actually limits the light- and while that may seem counter intuitive it is intended to prevent the photo from washing out with the lightning bolt detail getting lost in a lot of bright. Since I do not shoot when it's raining, the lightning will mostly be occurring in one direction; I'll know where to point the camera. I'm a bit of a weather nerd... and have long been fascinated at how the atmosphere behaves. Since to me, capturing lightning will not get old I keep an eye out for local radar when storms are forecast. We do get a fair share of lightning in Connecticut, but we also get quite a few duds... storms that roar across New York and die as they cross the Catskills and Adirondacks and run across sea breeze cooled air that kills these storms. Good luck with your attempts.... it can get addicting!
