LIGHTNING

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Lightning;
An atmospheric discharge of electricity, which typically occurs during thunderstorms and is one must dangerous and challenging subjects in the realm of night photography. With the excitement of storm chase, theirs certain things one must have and must know when photographing a lightning storm.

The Equipment:
1. You’ll need a (SLR) camera with exposure settings of a minimum of 30 seconds, a cable release and a steady tripod.
2. To protect your camera from any rain you can insolate your camera in a plastic bag, mount an umbrella to the tripod and if getting real serious you can get an underwater housing for maximum protection.
3. When shooting in rainy situations always carry a lens wipe and use a lens hood to minimize the rain that lands on the lens.
4. Having extra rain panchos can be the best thing you ever carried in your car.

The Shooting:
1. Shooting at an ISO of 100 or lower and keeping an aperture or 16 or smaller, will lengthen your exposure time and increase the chance of a bolt striking during the exposure.
2. Set camera to infinity to keep the camera in complete focus and have maximum depth of field.
3. Depending on the brightness from each bolt the exposures will vary in each photo, so change the shutter speed to adjust exposure accordingly.
4. Finding an open landscape with an optimum view or being high up will make it easier to see lightning.
5. Depending how long a scene might take to expose, you can turn off noise reduction maximize the amount of photos you might be able capture during a storm. Ex; If you shoot an 8 second exposure with the noise reduction on it can take up 8 seconds to process.

There’s no safe or right way to chase or photograph lightning and so just be cautious.