arg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (phtography gripe)

[ZfrkS62]

Damn my poor ass!!!! Right now we're having one of the best thunderstorms i've probably ever seen, and my cheap ass cameras are too f****** shitty to take a pic of even one strike :x

The storm passed directly overhead with the closest strike about a 1/4 mile away directly in front of me, but by the time the "shutter" closed on it, the bolt was gone, which royally blew because of the goddamn delay between hitting the button and the time the pic actually got snapped :bad-words: i couldn't even get a massive over exposure from it :( the rest of the time the lightning would strike the opposite direction i was looking :?

so i hearby leave lightning captures to the pros with 10 bajillion dollars worth of equipment and an infinite amount of patience...neither of which i am in possesion of :roll: :(

[gucom]

lol...an analog photo camera would do already i guess...even one of those low-quality thingys u use only once...at least in terms of shutter speed (dunno if the quality would be any good, but im a photography N00B... :roll:

[RC45]

Even with fast shutter speeds it is a crap shoot to catch lightening.

The only times I have been able to snap lightning is with some kind of motordrive on the old SLR or burst mode with a digicam... and just fire off a bunch of shots during the lightening show and hope for the best.

I would get about 5 shots out of 100 that showed the path of the bolt up to the cloud.

[Toronto]

umm....... if it is very dark out, just set the shutter to a low speed, 10-30sec,
and getting a lighting strikes are easy :wink:

[RC45]

umm....... if it is very dark out, just set the shutter to a low speed, 10-30sec,
and getting a lighting strikes are easy :wink:

Thats multi exposed paints across the sky. I found the single bolt captured to be a lot more exciting.

And you obviously have never experienced a Texas thunderstorm... sometimes an entire lightning strike is more like a light show/fireworks display and can last almost 5 seconds.. :)

So all you would get is a bunch of exposures on the same negative.

Not to mention you would need to sit all huddled around your camera on a tripod in the rain... :)

[ZfrkS62]

umm....... if it is very dark out, just set the shutter to a low speed, 10-30sec,
and getting a lighting strikes are easy :wink:

Thats multi exposed paints across the sky. I found the single bolt captured to be a lot more exciting.

And you obviously have never experienced a Texas thunderstorm... sometimes an entire lightning strike is more like a light show/fireworks display and can last almost 5 seconds.. :)

So all you would get is a bunch of exposures on the same negative.

Not to mention you would need to sit all huddled around your camera on a tripod in the rain... :)


Considering we get our weather from you guys, i would say i have experienced a texas thunderstorm :wink: about 5 minutes ago the was a multibranch strike with at least 15 different fingers. probably the7th one of it's kind today.

Unfortunatley toronto, my camera doesn't have shutter speeds :( my best shot is to take the continuous route, but that's hoping that the bolt hits long enough for me to even react :?

FUCK!!!! even as i type this a strike just occured that would have put the Ride the Lightning album cover to shame :( :x

[Toronto]

nope never been in a texas thunderstorm :D
ever been in an an ice storm that covers half of two provinces and the military need to be brought in, and people stuck in their homes for more then a week?

[RC45]

It looks like this - only it turns the black of a night time thunderstorm to daylight...

http://www.k5kj.net/l1.htm

[ZfrkS62]

Beautiful strikes :D

really wish i could have gotten the 2 pointer that struck about an hour ago. Thick white bolt hits about a mile and a half to the south, another bolt branched off that one at the cloud and traveled about 2.5 miles east and grounded out in the clouds above the airport. (all distances are judged by the amount of time between strike and thunder clap)

[gigdy]

if you try to wait for lightning then take a pic you will probably never get a pic of it, the best way to do it is like rc said and just keep taking pics.

[ZfrkS62]

as i said, i'm leaving it to the nature junkies :|

[antonioledesma]

:lol: It's pain in the ass to take a pic of a strike. The best that I could obtain with a friend digi-cam was snapping each time I could do it, and I managed to capture one picture, but it was so...awful and couldn't see a thing that I deleted the image

[RC45]

http://www.k5kj.net/99091112.jpg

This is probably the result of a time exposure....

http://www.k5kj.net/99091129.jpg

This is a good example of the sheet lightening lighting up the sky like 4th 'o July.. ;)

[zondaland]

They are seriously impressive images RC. Are they from Texas? I've never seen the whole cloud turn purple like that before. I thought I had seen some pretty big storms until I looked at those pics.

[RC45]

I am not sure where the images are from - probably Kansas, Oklahoma or Texas.

When I first got here the storms were really scary - btu you get used to it.

If you ever watched a movie, and thought the storm effects were over done with thunderclaps and lightening and rain like a hose against the window - that's what it can get like.

The sky will light up from horizon to horizon - really awe inspiring.

http://www.k5kj.net/Venus_mo.gif

Venus - Texas

[zondaland]

Cheers RC, those storms look like they would be awesome to see, provided you were inside, nice and dry.

[Toronto]

RC most of those shots ,are done with a slow shutter speed, you can tell by the amount of light in the clouds, a fast shutter speed wouldn't pick that up
another one is the fact that most of the light has a glow around it
http://www.k5kj.net/lite26.jpg - the red streak = slow shutter

[RC45]

RC most of those shots ,are done with a slow shutter speed, you can tell by the amount of light in the clouds, a fast shutter speed wouldn't pick that up
another one is the fact that most of the light has a glow around it
http://www.k5kj.net/lite26.jpg - the red streak = slow shutter

If you say so ;)

Not wanting to get into a protracted argument about it. But suffice it to say if you wanted to catch a single bolt you would need to either be satisfied with all the extra light - besides that "extra glow" you are observing is ometimes the way it looks - the entire sky lights up literally from horizon to horizon ;)

[Toronto]

^^ email him and aks him how he took the picks :P

[RC45]

Well - how ever he did is his business - I know how I have taken the odd bolt without a tripod... and it wasn't with a 10 second exposure. :)

[Toronto]

lucky shot as you said 4/100 :D

[kashif]

Hi.....
Nice Disscusion here...
its a great topic for increasing knowledge about photography...