Photographing lightning

Summer is upon us, and that means lightning storms are coming. I love photographing these intense electrical discharges that seem other-worldly. It is easier than you might think.

Night thunderstorms

The way to photograph storms differs from day to night. Taking pictures of lightning at night requires no special equipment, and the only real challenge is focus. The technique is quite simple. Mount your camera on a tripod, set the shutter speed to 30 seconds and the aperture to f/8, choose 400 ISO, and attach a medium telephoto to the camera. I typically use a focal length in the range of 150mm. This can vary depending on how far away the lightning is. Once, in Nevada, the bolts of lightning were right above my head and I actually used a 24mm wide angle to capture the action. But that was unusual. Since you can’t focus on the sky in the dark, and the lightning bolts happen too fast to focus on them, you have to employ one of two focusing techniques. First, you can focus on a distant light, such as an illuminated window, yard light, car head light, street lamp, etc. It has

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Starting June 1, Jim will be offering professional reviews of your portfolio. Choose 20 images, and Jim will select the 10 he wants to review with you on a on-to-one basis.

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to be far enough away such that the lens goes to infinity to focus on it. Switch to manual focus and don’t touch the focusing ring again.

Second, you can set the camera up at dusk and focus on distant landforms, trees, or clouds when you can see them. Switch to manual focus and again make sure you don’t touch the focusing ring so the lens stays perfectly focused on the sky.

Continuously take 30-second exposures during the storm, i.e., press the shutter for the 30-second exposure then repeat this again and again. You will get many black frames in which lightning didn’t strike, but some frames will capture what you want. Often, you’ll get multiple lightning bursts in a frame during the exposure. Direct the lens to the part of the sky where most bolts are occuring, and note this can change during the course of the storm as it moves across the sky.

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Including foreground elements, like the Saguaro Cactus, right, enhances lightning images. Wide open spaces are ideal for this type of composition. Desert areas like in the American Southwest and around lakes in forested areas allow you to see long distances, and combined with something of interest in the foreground, this enables you to capture dynamic images.

Daytime Thunderstorms

Trying to capture lightning strikes during the day is an exercise in frustration. Almost every time, it seems like you caught the image but you didn’t. The latent image of the lightning in our eyes deceives us into thinking the strikes are long enough to allow our reaction time to grab the shot.

The best way to capture lightning in daylight hours is with a lightning trigger. The unit sits in the hot shoe of the camera, and when it detects a strike it fires the camera immediately to

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catch it. The unit I use is made by Stepping Stone Products (lightningtrigger.com), and it is shown at right.

The shutter speed can’t be open for a long time or else the resulting images will be overexposed. The shutter speed has to be long enough to catch the lightning, but not too long due to the overexposure problem. I choose a shutter speed of 1/4 second. The f/stop depends on the amount of available light, but I err on the side of extensive depth of field. I usually shoot at f/16 or f/22, and for landscape work I limit the ISO to not more than 400. Since I’m using a tripod, there is no need for anything higher.

I recommend carrying an umbrella with you because if it starts to rain, you’ll want to pro

tect your camera gear as well as yourself. The only instance in which you won’t be able to shoot lightning is if it’s happening directly above you and it’s raining at the same time. Water drops on the lens would ruin the images. Carry a microfiber cloth with you so you can clean the lens periodically when needed. §

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