First successful lightning pictures
Had the chance to take some real good lightning pictures tonight. Well, the best I’ve taken so far and it’s only my second try. I’m lucky that we have the perfect spot close to home to view thunderstorms from a distance. You can view the other pictures right here: 20100726_Lightning
Wow!! I have some 35mm slides of lightning but nothing that looks this good!! In the “olden” days I would stop way down to f/22 and hold open the shutter until I’d see a flash, then close the shutter. Is it the same with digital photography?? People like me wanna know stuff!
From the research I’ve done, it’s pretty much the same for both type of camera (film and digital). Most sites I’ve read recommend f8.0 as a starting point for night time and then adjust for the storm you’re trying to photograph. I set mine at f9.0. Focus has to be set to infinity and exposure to bulb. Having a remote shutter helps a lot. For the white balance, don’t leave it on auto. I haven’t tried it but from my readings I gather that it doesn’t give good results. This time I had the white balance set to fluorescent. Next time I want to try tungsten and see the difference. The ISO is set to 200 but depending on the effect you want, you can also play with that. I took pictures with a setting of 800 and got some interesting results like more details in the clouds. Hope this helps!