Weather Imagery

Taking pictures of lightning is not nearly as hard as it seems. In fact, it’s actually quite simple assuming you’re taking pictures at night. If you’re shooting during daylight hours, all bets are off. You’ll either need lightning quick reflexes (pun intended) or some very expensive shutter trigger hardware. However, if shooting at night, you do not need a super high end SLR camera body with all the fancy options nor do you need a high end digital camera. The only options you must have on your SLR (single lens reflex) camera are:

• “Bulb” setting for long exposures times
• The ability to turn off auto-focus
• Manual control over F-Stop

Some point-and-shoot type cameras may work but it’s much easier when you have the ability to adjust the above settings.

I’ve found that I mostly take pictures of lightning using a focal length between 35mm to 100mm. Again, you don’t need a super high end camera lens that costs hundreds of dollars, but it is nice to have one that can zoom in and out. You will want to zoom in on storms that are off in the distance and zoom out on storms that are closer in. Constantly switching lenses is a pain.

To go along with the camera and lens, there are a few other pieces of equipment you will want as well:

• A tripod is absolutely necessary
• Cable release or some sort of remote shutter control
• Flashlight
• High quality lens rag (micro fiber) to remove water

ISO Setting

If you are shooting with print film, you want the slowest film you can get. Something like 100ASA is good and very easy to find. The slower films, such as 64ASA, will be a little more expensive and you won’t see a difference between it and 100ASA. The reason you want slower film is that the long exposures will look far less grainy on slower film speed. If you use something like 1600ASA, the image will look grainy. The same goes for digital as well. Is you have the option, set the camera to 100ASA. If you go any higher than that, chances are you will start to see a lot a noise in the image. By noise I mean pixels that don’t look right.

Aperture and Focal Length

This next part is the technical part, which isn’t that difficult, but takes time to figure out. There’s a balance between aperture and focal length and if you don’t have them set right your pictures will be too dark or washed out. As a starting point, I have found that when using print film a focal length at about 35mm and an F-Stop of about F8 works well. The further you zoom in (say to 100mm), the more light you will need to let in so the smaller the F-stop (F5.6). Conversely, the more you zoom out (say 28mm) the less light you will need to let in so the larger the F-stop (F11). With DSLR’s it’s a bit different. You need to let in a little more light for the same focal length so you want to step down one level (lower the F-Stop). Experimenting with aperture and focal lengths using film can be frustrating and expensive. This is the great advantage of digital. You can see the results immediately and make any necessary changes on-the-fly.

Exposure Times

Time won’t matter because it should be pretty dark out and the film/image won’t expose that quickly. Simply hold down the cable release button and wait … which could be as long as a couple minutes. Five to eight flashes of lightning that flood the sky with light do little to expose the film/image. If a lightning strike occurs within your frame of reference (what you see when looking through the camera), then release the cable lock. If you happen to catch a lightning strike right away, keep the cable release pressed down a while longer to allow the other scenery to show up as well.

Reference Frame

Study the storm for a bit to see where the lightning is coming from. Set your camera up and look though the lens for a bit to gauge how much you need to zoom in or zoom out. You want the entire lightning bolt to fit within the picture. If you zoom out too far, the lightning bolt will be small. If you zoom in too much, you won’t get the full dramatic effect. You want about 20% of the frame to show the ground, and the remaining 80% of the frame to capture the sky. Make sure you capture the lightning bolt exiting the cloud as it really adds a lot of power to the photograph. So in my opinion, the lightning bolt should fill about 70% of the picture frame.

Location, Location, Location

Make sure there aren’t too many lights in front or around you. By lights I mean headlights from cars, street lamps, or building lights. If the lights are off in the distance you should be fine and they won’t wash out your exposure. However, if you have a street light right above or in front of you, or cars are coming right at you, then you will want to find another angle for which to photograph the storm. Be careful where you set up shop. You don’t want to be in an open field, under a tree, or on top of a building. You also don’t want to be right next to the road as cars may have a difficult time seeing you in the dark and can also throw up pebbles which can leave a nice welt (Yeah, I learned the hard way … but it was a great spot!). Just use common sense.

Let’s Do It!

Ok, so you’ve got all your stuff and your ready to go. Here’s a quick rundown of how to take pictures of lightning:

• Set the camera on a tripod
• Point it towards the storm
• Attach the cable release
• Set the camera to the “Bulb” setting
• Make sure the lens in on manual focus (auto focus should be turned off)
• Set the focus to infinity
• Study the storm for a few minutes to see where the most lightning is occurring
• Set the focal length so that lightning fills about 70% of the frame
• Set the aperture somewhere between F5.6 and F11 as a starting point
• Push the cable release button … and wait

Take note of where you point the camera. What I mean is, while looking through the lens, take note of objects on the far left and far right. Then find those points while not looking through the camera. That way when a lightning bolt strikes, you will immediately know if your camera “saw” it as well. When you push the shutter button, you will no longer be able to see through the camera lens so this gives you a very good way of knowing whether you caught the lightning strike on film. If a lightning bolt hits within your field of view, release the shutter cable button.

There’s a lot of adjusting you need to do when taking pictures of lightning. The storm will move and one part will become more active while another dies down. And remember, don’t be afraid to take very long exposure times. You do NOT need to release the cable every time a lightning bolt flashes. The large flashes that occur within the cloud and fill the sky do very little to expose the film. So keep the shutter open until a lightning strike hits directly in front of you camera view.

It can be frustrating at first, but don’t be afraid to experiment!