whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY

I'd really be interested in learning how to shoot lightening at night. Besides using a tripod and setting the shutter speed to Bulb can anyone give me advice or pointers on what other settings I should use? I have a Fugi Finepix s9000 with a 28-300mm. lens. I would love to see people's photos of lightening and what settings were used. Thanks so very much for your help.

gizzy.whicker Loc: Cumberland Co., Illinois

For me it all boils down to luck. I use a tripod, of course, and a timed open shutter of anywhere from 3 seconds to 30 seconds... and hope that the part of the sky the camera is pointing at will have a lightening bolt or two in it. It's dangerous though because lightening likes even things like metal tripods. I'm sure others on this site will have more detailed information for you. It's actually pretty simple, really, and depends on the luck of the timing.

whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY

Thank you, Mr. Whicker. Any input is very much appreciated!

;-)

Aleaze Loc: Michigan

For a lot of Canon Powershot / Digital IXUS cameras, lightening is easy. There is software called CHDK, Canon Hack Development Kit. I have a canon just for the CHDK. It is free and temporary changes your software allowing your camera to use all functions it is capable of. One of the many useful items is "motion detection". It will trigger an exposure in response to motion, fast enough to catch lightning. Just put your camera on a tripod or a steady object, aim towards the storm, press the button and wait.

Otherwise it is pretty much as Whicker stated. Keep the shutter open as long as possible, shorter if there is a lot of lightening or in a city, and hope for the best. A Low ISO is fine and AV is a guess on how bright and far away the lightening is. I usually use ISO 100 and an AV of 4 or 5.6.

whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY

Thanks so much Aleaze. I don't know what AV is, though. Is that the aperture? Should I use wide angle?

PJT Loc: Sarasota,Florida

Check the web for sound triggers/ light triggers. They will take all the guess work. out of your photogrtaphy. I have bought a kit and am assembling the breadborad and wiring in my spare time. You can buy fully built triggers if you don't want to spend the time building one. Where I live, in the lightning capital of the US this is an everyday occurance during the summer months. Good Luck . While your at it google "how to photograph lighting" It may help you. 8-)

whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY

Thank you PJT - I appreciate all the information and will check it out. If you have any lightening photos I would love to see them. :-)

gessman Loc: Colorado

I'll share this with you and if it fits, good. I don't know your Fuji but unless I'm wrong, it sounds like a point and shoot. That doesn't matter if you have the right features. The main feature most lightening shooters look for in a camera is a setting called "bulb" and is represented on the mode wheel by the letter "B." It is a setting that allows you to hold the shutter open as long as you desire by using a cable or remote release. SLR shooters use this setting to catch lightening.

You observe that part of the sky from which a storm is approaching or more in general, where it is lightening. Try to find a fairly dark spot away from city lights. Put your camera on all manual, including focus. With camera on a tripod, aperture on f8, f11, f16, your choice, and you can vary it for different shots to be safe in getting a clear focus, focus on infinity, and open the shutter, waiting on a lightening strike. When you've caught a bolt or two or however many, you close the shutter. Simple as that. That's how the "big boys" get those shots with many strikes in the same picture. The farther the storm is from you, the longer you can hold the lens open and the more strikes you can record. It does not require triggers. If your camera is a point and shoot, there may be features that will do the same thing. You can figure that out from your manual. Look for the "B" setting. Some of the auto cameras will allow you to program in a timed setting with the lens open, say, up to 30 minutes. That's handy. You don't even need a remote shutter release. That's the basics.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Oh, I forgot. In case you wonder why "bulb." I've never heard it explained exactly in these terms but it may relate to a type of remote shutter release. You can get, for some cameras, a release that screws into your camera or fits into a socket, has a small rubber tube that leads to a rubber bulb that you squeeze to trip the shutter. Most, if not all, bulb releases have a screw valve that lets you close off the air flow so you don't have to stand there squeezing the bulb for 30 minutes. I think it is THAT bulb that gave the camera setting its name. Could be wrong but it's the only thing that makes sense to me. Lots of photographers who shoot large format cameras use bulb releases because they shoot so many slow shutter shots and timed exposures. Read up in your manual to see if you can do timed exposures - that's different to the timer you have which counts down and then clicks the shutter for you. It's called "timed exposures." If your camera is set up for then that would be how you would get them with your Fuji. It should be in your manual. If it's not a feature you'll have to figure out another way, perhaps triggers as was already discussed.

ThomasV Loc: California

I'm not sure how your Fugi works but this is how I do it.
Naturally a tripod pointed at the direction lightning.
Next I use a remote timer that plugs into my camera. I use a Nikon D90. I think the timer can be bought for under 30.00. You can probably get on for most cameras. This Timer allows you to set it for x number of exposures at x amount of time. I used 15 sec and 150 exposures. The camera is set at bulb and manual focus at f5.6 with my wide angle. As the camera is clicking away the lighting will be flashing. After all these exposures are done I bring in all the jepgs into this software call Star Stacker. (I also use this when shooting startrails). It is free on the Internet and very easy to use. Okay..once you stack your lets say 150 shots the bolts you captured will be pressed into one jpeg. Check out my lightning shot over San Francisco Airport. I caught many little bolts a one large bolt. It is very hard to sit there and try to time this by hand. Feel free to look around my site, I do have a startrails shots in there that I also used this method of stacking.
http://chasinglightphotography.zenfolio.com/p359044659/h15351900#h15351900

TV

cybermomm

Here's what I did to get this picture: When you see lightning, go to a place where you can get a clear shot. Set camera on tripod, and hook up a remote shutter activator (very inexpensive - try Ebay). There was so much lightning flashing over the city that I knew if I did 10 second intervals eventually I would capture a strike. I didn't want to do longer than that because of the ambient light all around from the houses and city lights. Put your camera on manual focus and set to infinity, and point the camera/tripod setup toward where the lightning should be. Just keep activating the shutter in 10 second intervals, and you should eventually catch something. I'm a newbie, but the more knowledgeable people on this forum probably have a better way. This worked for me. Other info: Taken with a Nikon D300, 70-300 telephoto fully extended, f/11, 10 seconds, ISO 2000.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Nice catch and proves there's more'n one way to skin that cat. I'm just wondering how many point and shoot cameras have a place to plug in your activator. I'm thinkin' not many.

cybermomm

Good observation. I have done it before without an activator. It worked just fine, but I was probably lucky, or steady, one of the two.

gessman Loc: Colorado

The real trick in all of this is that to ensure that you catch a bolt, you must have the shutter open. You can either open it and leave it until the bolt strikes or you can try to time it. The more sure way is to just keep it open. "Sooner or later," may not happen. The trick then becomes, "how can I do that with the camera I have?" That has to be the task of whoever has what camera. If you have a constant light source such as city lights, you can't just sit there and keep your lens open forever because the lights with be exposing the image the whole time and will eventually blow out the scene whether you caught a bolt or not. The brighter the lights, the sooner you'll want to close the shutter and start a new image. It's pretty much guesswork all the way.

Sensei

Different times of day may require a variation of techniques. With digital it is a big advantage being able to see lightning shots as soon as you've taken them - so adjustments to exposure can be made while the storm is still active. Of course the biggest advantage is that it costs nothing and you see the results immediately. There is a negative: digital is less forgiving with over exposed lightning pictures than film. You need a camera that can be put on a tripod and have a cable remote release. I found trying to zoom in on distant lightening didn't work well for me, and don't bother trying. Your camera shoud be focused for infinity , anything slightly out of focs with digital shots like this are really bad. All compact digital have an infinity setting. When using a DSLR it gets a little more complex. To find infinity at night you can use the autofocus system to try and focus on a distance light source then switch the lens to manual focus once this is found. If you cannot get the autofocus mechanism to work you will have to manually focus the lens. A problem with most autofocus lenses is that they either have no infinity marker (sideways 8 symbol) or the centre of the infinity marker is not really infinity, You might need some trial and error on your equipment. I like to use one of the old manual focus lenses which seem more precise. At night Set the aperture (F-stop) to between F2.8 and F5.6. Watch the lightening for a bit before you take the picture. Some cloud to ground flashes are very fast , and some take longer.In general exposure time shoud not be more than 15 seconds. But if you can't see it developing you can try longer. If the lightening is fast Press the cable/remote to open the shutter. Wait for the lightning (or multiple lightning) to occur within the frame of your shot. Release the shutter. If it is lasting longer do the same thing .. open the shutter when you see the flash and then hold it open for as long as you want. During the day it becomes a matter of reacting fast and pointing in the right direction . If your camera has a fast continuous shooting mode - you can always just do a continuous shoot and hope that lightning occurs during that time. It does require a lot of discarding of images afterwards, but you may be rewarded with a fully branched daytime CG lightning picture