It took me 250 shots to get 5 strikes captured, but it was definitely worth the time and effort… (I confess to tweaking bit in Photoshop, but other than that, this is pretty much the actual picture I got.)
http://img458.imageshack.us/img458/7048/thunderstrike4gc.jpg
Cool pic. I have been trying also with no luck yet. Way to go!!!
Here’s one more. I love the quality of the strike itself, but it was an unexpected shot - I didn’t even know I had gotten it until I transferred the pics to my computer, so the focus and lighting isn’t the best, and I can’t get seem to get it better in Photoshop, either…
http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/9393/branchythunder2ru.jpg
I think that the second one, despite being out of focus, looks much cooler than the first. Although they’re both damn cool.
What kind of camera set-up did you take those pictures with? Also, what sort of tweaking did you do with Photoshop? Could you post the untweaked photo for comparison?
Great shot, BTW! 
Wow, I’m impressed. I’ve often wondered how people go about photographing lightning. Do you have snicker lightning-fast reflexes, or do you just keep shooting at regular intervals and hope to catch a strike?
It’s a Canon Digital Rebel camera, handheld shot. Shot specs:
Focal length 31.0mm (31/1)
Exposure time 0.033 s (1/30)
Aperture f/4.5
ISO equivalent 400
I just remembered that the “branchy” picture was taken with my telephoto lens, which is why I struggled so much with the focus. I just grabbed the camera and started shooting as soon as the storm started, hoping to get a shot of the lightning. After bagging a couple of shots, I switched to the wide angle to get better images. I was going to grab the tripod to get even better pics but the storm was pretty much over by then.
Here’s the untouched photo:
http://img467.imageshack.us/img467/9097/lightningoriginal2xy.jpg
I lightened up the foreground a bit, because a lot of the detail was lost there. Of course, because I haven’t spent much time working on it, I ended up sacrificing some of the great detail that is in the clouds in the original. I also bumped up the colors a bit to get them more representative of the way it actually looked. It loses a lot in the conversion to JPEG - the original looks a lot better in full resolution than it does when I scale it down for the web.
I just shot continuously, hoping to get lucky. I’m not sure I’d call a 1 in 50 success rate very lucky, but it was definitely worth it. One thing that did help is that the strikes were hitting in the same basic vicinity (I think there are a couple of very tall lightning rods on the ridge) so I’d just shoot and hope.
What I wonder is how anybody ever managed to get shots on film. I’d have gone through 10 rolls of film if I didn’t have a digital.
(I also just noticed that I named the first two pics “thunder” for some bizarre reason. :smack:)
If it’s ok with you, I think I’ll use them as backgrounds for my computer.
Great work!
I’m honored 
Feel more than welcome to!
I like the untouched one. It shows the intensity of the storm so much more. I love a great big thunderstorm!
The more I compare the two, the more I’m inclined to agree. That detail in the clouds is just too good to lose…
Wow. 250 attempts. Those are pretty cool. I’ve always wanted to try it but the thought of stepping outside at night, during a thunderstorm, with an expensive camera and tripod setup did not appeal. What camera did you use? If you have some sort of SLR it’s easier to just hold the shutter open manually until you get a strike or two :3
And oh yes, that is how they get lightning strikes on film. Film SLRs (and digital ones, I assume, though I’ve never really used one) have a setting where the shutter stays open until you get go of the button. Because it’s at night having the shutter open in the dark is almost the same as having it shut - except when there’s a strike. It’s also how they get multiple strikes in one shot. Photographers like to cheat
I LOVE lightning. We don’t get very many lightning storms in Alaska, and if and when we do, it’s boring far away “sheet lightning” (is that the right name for it? It is just a brightening of the sky off in the distance, no cool forked stuff).
Maybe you’ll think I’m nuts, but I actually like your untouched photo better. Both are lovely, but the untouched one looks like you’re really THERE.
On most old cameras, at least my Nikon FG-20, there’s a shutter speed that leaves the shutter open until you close it basically, so you compensate by using a very small aperture, so the light from the foreground can come in and give you the coloring you want while still being permeated by the lightning. Also, they use the same technique when shooting those time-elapsed photos of star movement etc.
-foxy
And now I see that csharpmajor has basically said the same thing I just did.
:smack:
-foxy
Sorry, I guess I forgot to mention mine is indeed an SLR. The fact that it was so bright out, and I was shooting handheld, made leaving the shutter open long enough or dropping the ISO speed a bad choice for me, and I was shooting at the smallest aperture for my lens already.
Those are cool pictures.
Yeah…even in daylight, the best way to do it is to mount the camera on a tripod, stop the lens down all the way (around f/22 for most wideangle or normal lenses), shoot at the lowest ISO (digital) or a slow film, put on a polarizer or ND filter to reduce the light intake even more, then open the shutter for about 1sec or more…you’ll get some strikes.