this week I'm gonna show you how I photograph lightning
sometimes want to go out and photograph lightning I'll get absolutely nothing
other times they'll get partial strikes and then sometimes they'll get really
good shots it all comes down to chance if your camera is pointing in the right
direction and the shutter is open when the lightning strikes you'll get a
photograph sometimes storms can last for ages other times there'll be a couple of
flashes and they'll dissipate so when a storm happens near you and you want to
go out and take photographs of it you need to act quickly at the start of the
week we had some fantastic storms here in Dubai we were relaxing in the evening
and then all of a sudden the Lightning started to kick off outside I grabbed my
bag quickly and headed out to the palm with hindsight I probably should have
headed down towards the Burj Khalifa being the tallest building in the world
it probably attracts quite a lot of lightning but we had to act fast so I
headed out to the palm because all the lightning was happening out to sea
anyway it all happened really quickly and I forgot to get some b-roll but I
thought I'd make this quick video to show you the settings I use when I go
out to photographed lightning first things first
safety you need to be really careful when taking photographs in a storm if
you're stood in the middle of the field and the storm comes over you this isn't
a good idea so choose your location wisely just take care and use common
sense if you feel like the storm is bearing down on you get inside a house
or inside a car just somewhere where you're safe as lightning tends to be
really bright when it strikes there's a lot of lights about so you don't need an
amazing camera you can use an entry-level camera with a kit lens and
still get some really good shots you just need to know how to set your camera
up properly for lightning I always use a tripod and this is essential and if it
gets really windy you'll need quite a sturdy tripod this will keep the camera
Rocksteady while you've got your shutter open
waiting for the lightning to strike if the storm is far away I'll use a
telephoto lens if the storm is really close I'll use a wide-angle lens I'll
then set the focus to infinity so a manual lens is great for this if you
don't have a manual focus lens just set the lens to infinity by focusing on a
light on the horizon and then set it to manual focus for my settings I'll keep
the ISO to 100 and then the aperture to about f/8 if
the Lightning is further away you'll have to open your aperture up by
dropping your F number if the Lightning is closer you might need to close your
aperture down to keep the exposure under control by raising the F number up if
the storm is happening at night I'll tend to keep my shutter speed between 8
and 15 seconds depending on the ambient light you just need to dial in your
settings for the conditions that you have on the day in the evening your
shutter speeds will obviously be shorter to get good exposure but then you'll
have more gaps between shots and then it will increase the chances of missing
lightning strikes for example if you set your shutter speed to 10 seconds and you
had a one-second interval every minute you'd have your shutter closed for about
5 seconds on the other hand if you set your shutter speed to 3 seconds and had
a 1 second interval over each minute you'd end up with 15 seconds where the
shutter was closed so you can see that more frames per minute will give you
more time where the shutter is actually closed depending on how regular the
lightning is striking I'll choose either an intervalometer or
a shutter release cable if it's striking really regularly a shutter release will
work really well all you'll do is set the shutter to bulb mode and then hold
the shutter open until the lightning strikes then let go of the button as
soon as it's struck if it isn't that regular I'll use my intervalometer the
great thing with this is you just let your camera take the photographs and
then you can watch the lightning happening all around you very quickly
you can see if lightning is striking in different places and then reframe your
shot and then keep that time-lapse going the other night I set it to ten-second
exposures with one-second intervals I set the number of shots to infinity
put the camera on manual mode and in bold mode at ISO 100 and f8 and then I
just started the sequence using an intervalometer works really well and
it'll mean once you've set your camera up it'll be continuously taking photos
it doesn't even matter if you get distracted your camera will be
automatically taking photographs I got this shot because I was using an
intervalometer I saw a bolt flash right above us so I quickly reframed the shot
and pointed the camera up 45 degrees the only downside to this was
getting raindrops on the lens because I was pointing the camera up so much and
this is one of the challenges with shooting lightning you'll find that rain
is normally associated with big storms it'll normally affect wide-angle lenses
more because they have bulbous front elements so make sure you have a lens
cloth with you all the time and when you have an interval wipe the lens if
there's any raindrops on it I normally look around the front of my lens and
check it every now and then if there's any rain in the air if you're getting
soaked you might have to run for cover and also you need to check to see if
your camera has weather sealing if it has you can take lots of shots and not
worry too much apart from the raindrops on the lens if it's not weather sealed
you'll have to run for cover we were hiding under the tailgate of the car but
you can see in this shot it got into the frame with a 14 millimeter lens then all
you need to do is keep tracking to see where the bolts of lightning are coming
from they tend to move through the sky pretty quickly so you'll need to keep
reframing your shot I've just quickly gone over how to set your camera up to
increase your chances of getting a shot of a bolt of lightning however if you
want a more in-depth tutorial I highly suggest going over to Pecos Hanks
Channel I've linked it to the eye in the corner and the link in the description
he's really entertaining and not only does he has shots of lightning but he
has lots of tornadoes as well and he has a wealth of knowledge on storms in
general and that's about it photographing lightning can be fast and
sometimes frustrating and the storm can be over before you know it but if you
have the right settings in camera from the get-go you'll really increase your
chances just make sure you're photographing from a tripod you use a
shutter release cable or an intervalometer and set the camera to
bulb modes as always if you like what you see give me a thumbs up if you
didn't give me a thumbs down and for weekly tutorials hints and tips in
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in the next one