Photography; Capture the Lightning

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Lightning photography is a hard subject to work on. But it is not impossible even for amateur photographers. You need a couple of equipments and you need to find a thunderstorm.

Watch the weather channels and weather forecasting web-sites like Weather.com or Yahoo! Weather to find a good thunder storm. Also choose a location that you can take the best shots.

[ad#content2]

You need a tripod, because if you hold your camera in your hand, you’ll shake your camera and the picture will be blurry. You need long exposure times in order to capture the lightning which is incredibly fast. You cannot press the shutter release button when you see the lightning, you have to press the button and wait for lightning, else you’ll miss the shot. Buy a shutter release cable which is quite cheap to use your cameras B (Bulb) feature effectively. Shutter release cable also helps you take the shot without touching your camera which will reduce the risk of shaking the camera (by pressing the button on your camera you can shake it by mistake even when your camera is on a tripod.).

Go to the location that you decided before which is great for shooting the lightning, place your camera on your tripod. Attach shutter release cable to the camera, set your aperture, exposure and ISO, you are ready to go. Capturing the lightning is much more easy when you use BULB function of your camera, set your shutter speed to the Bulb or B, press the shutter release button on the cable until you see a lightning bolt then release the button. that way you’ll capture the lightning. Of course you may have some problems with the exposure level or finding the best settings, but you’ll increase the results as you practice more. Practice, practice, practice…

Note : If you don’t have a shutter release cable, use the timer of your camera with a long shutter time, that way you increase the chance to capture a lightning. If you can’t capture it because of wrong timing try more and you’ll get the results. Also if you don’t have tripod put you camera on a table, wall etc. and make sure it is fixed, safe and stable and use the timer to take the shot.

* Bulb leaves the shutter open as long as you hold the button and closes it as you release the button.