practice

[Craig.]

Well during my trip too the US we were hit by a surprise electrical storm, and as you all know lightning photography is an area i wanted to get into. Since this was a surprise storm i had little to prepair for it and only had film with a speed of 200 which is much to slow but here were the results. Next time i will be prepaired a little more i hope, prob always going to carry an 800 film in my bag,



The main thing i got from this was practise in long exposure shots, and i know where i went wrong in terms of the results. I have been taking photos now for over 5 years, but its really only recently i have been enjoying it.. And its this sort of thing that keeps me going with it.

[Felix/FFDS]

Hand steadied or tripod?

I guess it was manually holding down the shutter release?

[Craig.]

i had it balanced on the car roof, cable shutter release.
Problem was it was windy so i had to keep a hand on the camera to try and keep it steady.

[chomp_rock]

Hmmm... It seems you have been mislead, 100 or 200 film is optimal film for lightning photography if not a little fast! You need get some 50 speed film and just keep the shutter open untill you see a lightning strike. That should leave you with a good photo.

[Craig.]

thanks chomp. i was going on what i had read in a couple of places. I will give it another go with the 100 when i get a chance. Also will have to get a tripod

[Rifleman]

I know this is old hat, but if you want to shoot some good night time shots, I would suggest finding a light meter and use it for your exposures....it will give you a starting point for aperture and shutterspeed....although shutterspeed seems a bit of a misnomer since you will be using the "bulb" setting and using that locking cable release, if you have one....once you have shot and processec a few, you will have a better feel for what you can expect.......don't go for the high speed film unless you can accept the "grainyness" which comes from that. Since its been a while since I have shot night images, I'm not sure what kind of colour saturation you may get from the higher ISO (ASA) numbers. My fav was always Kodak KR-64 (slide film) for the best images, but then not too many people still like to shoot transparencies these days.

Oops, seems like I may be rambling again  :-X......ease off now Ken, these guys may not like too much info at once.  ::)

[Craig.]

Thanks for the info Ken. I will soon be back in work and have decided to pick up a 300D with simmilar setup to what Bones owns. I plan to pick up a light meter in the process, is there anything else that would be helpful? I have decided i am going to really commit myself to photography in the hopes of one day making money off of it.

 Finally, could anyone explain why the photos have that greenish brown tint? i have some photos taken round the same time and light levels, but they are clear, is it where the camera has moved or is it something to do with the actual lightning in the shot?
Thanks guys all help is appreciated

[swanny338]

just one thing, if you plan to focus on long exposures, a digital camera of any sort probably wouldnt be a good idea... they normally create a good amount of noise after a couple seconds from what i have heard

[chomp_rock]

You won't have noise problems with the 300D if you keep the ISO <200. You won't need a light meter, meter on your camera probably wont even be of use.

For night lightning photography:
Just set the focus to infinity, set the aperture around F4, use a remote realease and set the camera to "B". Hold the shutter open untill you see a strike and release the bulb/cable release.

[flyboy 28]

Nice shots... Puke-ish color, but neat anyway.

[Craig.]

Thank you for the advice, i ordered the 300D with a shutter release cable the kit lense and the 75-300mm lense. Going to be doing alot of night photography in the city centre to practice correct light settings then hopefully move onto the  lightning when we get it

[Rifleman]

[quote]
For night lightning photography:
Just set the focus to infinity, set the aperture around F4,  

[Craig.]

thanks for the info, i really appreciate it. I am by no means getting rid of the SLR its just too expensive to keep making mistakes, so all this info is really helping:)

[Wing Nut]

I always used to shoot on either really low speed film (25 or 50 Speed) or on slides.  Some of my best lightning shots were not done by snapping at the right time, but by framing the subject I wanted, opening the shutter for 30 seconds or so, and catching the strikes that way.  It was sucsessful a lot more than you might think it would be.  I also tended to get several strikes in a shot instead of just one.