Well the sacrafice of sleep and forever fighting the rain paid off, I got a pretty decent shot of a lightning strike. Ive gotten a few this year, but this is about the best of them so far, but the season is young and Im ready to chase.
I can hardly wait to go to Florida. I ASSURE you that if I have to I'll be on the beach driving rebar into the ground to get a few strikes captured while Im down there.
One way or another Im coming back with some pictures of lightning from Florida.
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2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
SyntheticShield wrote: I can hardly wait to go to Florida. I ASSURE you that if I have to I'll be on the beach driving rebar into the ground to get a few strikes captured while Im down there.
One way or another Im coming back with some pictures of lightning from Florida.
Ever seen a fulgerite? Some of them are amazing.
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A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams...John Barrymore
No, I havent seen one personally. If I could pinpoint where the strikes hit at I would certainly go back and see if I could dig one up. Though I feel the ground around here may be a little too dense to dig one up in one piece. As well, though I stay off private property when shooting storms (i.e. farms and pasture land) but thats where a lot of the strikes I get shots of occur and around here you have to be careful of the 12ga shotgun totin' property owner. We can carry concealed weapons around here so I try not do something that would give anyone the wrong idea.
With Florida's shoot first ask questions later law, you can bet I wont venture into any area there that might be percieved in the wrong way.
I have told my fiance that Im building a farm of re-enforced boxes about 10' tall when we get our own house and each one is going to be full of sand and one rod of rebar
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
Jonny Bolt wrote: Holy happy hussballs. That's a sick pic. Perfect timing on the shot lol, thats like full-throttle vibrant lightnin'!
Do we have a New Englander translater around here?
If I understood correctly, that would mean it was a good shot.
Thanks Jonny. It wasnt quite close enough for me, but I'll take it as it has been a rough season again in getting some good shots.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
Is a fulgerite one of those glass-like things that form when lightning hits sand? I'm ashamed but I only know of that phenomenon from the Reese Witherspoon movie "Sweet Home Alabama"
Is a fulgerite one of those glass-like things that form when lightning hits sand? I'm ashamed but I only know of that phenomenon from the Reese Witherspoon movie "Sweet Home Alabama"
Yes it is. However, I have never seen pictures of one that came out as clear as the one in the movie, though the shape they showed was pretty accurate. I think even in the best or purest of sand they wouldnt come out that clear due to the heat involved and I know from study of them that they arent strong enough, in any case Ive read about, that you would be able to polish them. They are pretty fragile and typically not solid but hollow. The longest one ever dug up was around 17 feet long and was dug up in Florida.
As just a bit of fact, Florida is the lightning capital of the U.S., whereas Africa is the lightning capital of the world believe it or not.
You can do a search on google and find plenty of pictures of fulgurites, and you will notice that most of them are pretty short because they are so fragile and difficult to dig up.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
Yes. I came across a collection of them in Florida. Interesting shapes. I understand that Florida is the best place in the world for fulgerites. When Daniel mentioned sticking rebar in the beach it reminded me of that collection. Wish that I could remember the man's name.
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A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams...John Barrymore
CKA wrote: Very sweet, nice work. I like your work, great stuff.
Thank you CKA. If you like my work then you will be glad to know that I got 32 pics of lightning last night. Not all of them as good as the one posted here, but I got them nonetheless. It was like being in a freakin war zone with all the strikes that were hitting and then the subsequent thunder. If I had not had to be at work today and had more time to take advantage of the storm pulsing I could have easily doubled that number.
Im sooooo glad I dont shoot film now cause I would have went through a ton of film last night.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
Nice pic...do you have one of those gadgets that supposedly goes on a camera and when lightning strikes or something it will take the shot??? Heard of it?
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Blurry wrote: Nice pic...do you have one of those gadgets that supposedly goes on a camera and when lightning strikes or something it will take the shot??? Heard of it?
I have heard of it, but I dont use one. They run about $300 for them and the only real advantage of having one would be in getting daytime lighning pictures. And really, for about $50 I can do the same thing. The trick is long exposures, thats what it boils down to. The longer exposure you can use, the more chance you have of getting a strike. As you probably know, during the day time this is a little difficult to say the least. Thats why I went and bought some Cokin Neutral Density filters. Their main task is to reduce the amount of light reaching the camera, and you can stack them so you can 'increase' or add up the amount of light reduction. So in the daytime hours I'll stack enough filters to give me a roughly 30 second exposure. In an active storm this is plenty of time and it allows you to use the auto timer on most cameras so I just set, click and watch.
The proceedure is pretty much the same for night time storms with the exception I can do much longer exposures if necessare as in the case of a less active storm. Ive dont as much as five minute exposures before. Its a lot of fun actually cause every storm is different. If there are a lot of cloud flashes, you need to account for that. If you have a lot of lighting around like city lights, street lights and so on, you got to take that into account as well.
You'll see in the pic there was a street light that thankfully wasnt working or it would have made it very difficult to get that picture as close as it was. There were more of them off to my right, but were far enough out of frame I could account for any light spill over into the frame.
The proximity of the strike has a great deal effect as well. You use the light from the strike to expose the frame. So if the strikes are far away, say 1/2 mile or more, I have to use a different setting than if they were closer than 1/2 mile. If the strike occurs at the beginning of the exposure or at the end also effects the outcome. If you are shooting where you have some lights, and you set your exposure to account for the lights but not the actual strike, then you could get an over exposed frame. And if the storm is really active and you get frequent multiple strikes during an exposure, you have to be ready for that too. Ive had some shots that would have been magazine cover quality with just the one strike, but before the exposure was complete, more occured and over exposed the frame.
So chasing the storm is really the easy part, learning to read the storm, its activity and knowing your camera play an important role. So it was more adventageous for me to go through that trial and error process to learn all that. Had I used a lightning trigger I would have never learned all the techniques and things that must be considered in various situations. And Ive done what few storm photographers do. Ive shot lightning in the daytime. I havent yet captured any with my digital camera as of yet as I have learned that the sensor in a digital is wildly different than with film, so Im having to re-learn all my settings, but I'll get there.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
Very sweet, nice work. I like your work, great stuff.
