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| © Kevin Pepper |
Today's guest blogger is my friend and photographer Kevin Pepper. Together, we are leading lightning workshop to Venezuela in November (November 10 to 15) of this year and next year. Here's the info on this year's trip and next year's trip.
Take it away Kevin.
My
mom used to tell me “the angels are having their bowling tournament”,
my neighbor would tell me that “Lightning is how God punished the bad
kids for lying”. Boy, it sure was fun growing up in the "Bible belt" in
rural Ontario… LOL
Photographing
lightning can be quite challenging and even dangerous if you do not use
a little forethought and planning. The following tutorial will outline
the necessary equipment, as well as explain the tricks and techniques
you can employ to safely and successfully capture photographs of
lightning the next time the bowling tournament starts in the sky near
you.
The Gear:
DSLR camera with BULB setting capabilities is preferred, standard
telephoto lens or wide angle lens, remote cable release, a tripod for
camera stabilization or bean bag for camera stabilization, a lightning
trigger and a lot of patience. The lightning trigger is a device that
you attach to the camera hot shoe and connect it to your camera’s
electronic cable release terminal. When switched on, a forward-pointing
sensor will keep an electronic eye out for quick flashes of light from a
lightning storm, when it detects one, it will just trigger the camera.
Other accessories: Cable release, glow in the dark stick to wrap around my
tripod so I can see it at night, a 16 gig memory card to capture the
hundreds of RAW images, kata rain cover for my camera, tripod and an old
pillow case filled with rice to use as stabilization in case the tripod
cannot be used.
The Hurdles:
Your first hurdle is general the unpredictability of a lightning storm.
Haven’t we all said we wanted to be a weather man because they can be
totally wrong on the forecast day after day and still keep their jobs? :-)
Lucky for us lightning can be tracked real time and moves in a line
inside a weather pattern (generally) There are radar websites that track
lightning strikes in your area that you can go online and check
whenever you want. This will give you a good idea of where the lightning
is coming from, how intense the strikes are and how fast the front is
moving.
The
second hurdle is positioning. If you are in the country, the
limitations of buildings are not going to be an issue for you. If you
are in the city, you really need to get away from the apartments and
buildings to get a better view of the travelling storm. Position
yourself as you wish, just pay attention to the foreground and ground
elements to capture much more interesting photos like the photo below.
The
third hurdle is rain. Rain generally accompanies lightning. So keeping
your camera gear dry is a concern if you are outside.
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| © Kevin Pepper |
When
selecting a location for shooting lightning, you should always keep a
mind for safety as well as having a great view of the sky. Local lakes
lend themselves quite nicely to lightning photography, unless they
happen to be surrounded by lots of trees. Even so, if you can find an
unobstructed view in at least one direction, you should be okay.
An
open field could work, though your car may be more susceptible to being
struck by lightning if there are no other, taller objects nearby. Rest
assured, however, that if your car is struck by lightning while you are
inside, you will be perfectly safe and unharmed, as the car’s metal
exterior will absorb the electricity from the lightning.
Setting up for the shot:
Setting up the camera to shoot lightning from within an automobile is
as simple as placing the bean bag, or other similar support, on the dash
of the car and resting the camera on the dash, with the lens resting on
the bean bag. Connect the cable release and that is all that is
required! If it happens to be raining when you are shooting, don’t
forget to activate your windshield wipers. Doing this will not affect
the photograph as slow shutter speeds will be utilized, thus causing the
moving wipers to disappear.
Now
would be a good time to discuss composition. Photographing lightning is
different from other subjects in that you have no control over where
and when lightning will strike. In fact, usually, it will strike well
outside your lens’s field of view, leaving you with a black image. This
can be quite frustrating, which is why I recommend lots of patience.
Setting
the camera up in the middle of the dash and shooting through the
windshield using a standard angle focal length will greatly increase
your chances of capturing lightning bolts that strike within your
camera’s field of view. Or, open the side door of the van and set the
camera on a tripod. But then you could be standin
g in the tropics
shooting a massive thunderstorm over the water far off in the
distance like my buddy Alan did with the photo below.
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| © Kevin Pepper |
Camera Settings: Lightning
photography requires slower shutter speeds in order to provide enough
time that you get at least one fork or bolt of lightning. You can then
do one of two things. If you have a lightning trigger, that will trigger
the shutter release for you and all you have to do is sit back and
enjoy the show. Or, you can use your manual shutter release, set you’re
your exposure time to BULB and get involved in how long the shutter
stays open.
Personally
I like to use the cable release, set the camera on BULB and manually
open and close the shutter while the camera sits on a tripod or bean
bag.
ISO: 100
– I set my camera’s ISO setting to 100 when photographing lightning.
This allows for longer shutter speeds with the minimum possible digital
noise.
Aperture or f-stop: f/9.0 - f/11
– As with the ISO setting, I set the aperture anywhere form f/9.0 to
f/11. The main reason for this is to ensure as great a depth of field as
possible without sacrificing sharpness of the photograph. I focus
somewhere in the foreground to ensure that is in focus, then switch over
to manual focus so the camera is not trying to focus everytime I click
the shutter... then I just let the lightning show take care of the rest.
Shutter Speed: 4 to 6 seconds, sometimes more
– The best time to attempt lightning photography is after dark, thus
requiring long shutter speeds. Lightning photography can happen as early
as the blue hour, butoptimal results will be achieved after dark. The
fastest shutter speed I ever use for lightning photography is 4 seconds.
This allows the shutter to be open long enough to capture a strike if
the lightning activity is fairly frequent. The optimal shutter speed
setting is 6 seconds to as much as 8 seconds depending on ambient
lighting and the amount of strikes. This allows the shutter to be open
long enough to capture lightning without over or underexposing the image
in most cases.
White Balance: Auto
– Again, I set my camera’s white balance to the auto setting and leave
it because this gives the greatest flexibility and control when
post-processing in the digital darkroom. There, I can fine-tune the
white balance to suit my preferences for each individual image.
Image Format: RAW
– Shooting in RAW format is best so as to allow the most editing
options when post-processing, or “developing”, photographs in editing
software.
These recommended settings will allow the smallest margin of error and largest chance of success.
Now
for the personal plug… LOL… Do you want to go on a photography workshop
to see the world’s best lightning storm that happens 300 nights a year
in Venezuela? Please join Rick Sammon and myself in November of 2012 or
October of 2013 on Lake Maracaibo for a lightning show like you have
never seen before.
Happy Shooting,
Kev
