6 January 2013

After the heat, comes the storm...

| Gungahlin Al
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lightning

It was hot outside today, and it will be hot again tomorrow. But in between we’ve had a great series of storm cells passing over, with some excellent lightning.

I pointed the camera out the upstairs window, and set it on automatic shooting with a programmable remote control. Unfortunately there’s nothing automatic about the processing stage…

But after sorting through some 600 frames of 30MB RAW files, it came down to 13 keepers.

lightning lightning lightning

The rest are over on Flickr.

The intricacy of these lightning flashes amazes me, with all the multiple branches and doubling back. The camera reveals so much more than the eye sees…

And it’s no surprise there were plenty of fires started by all this.

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Gungahlin Al9:46 am 07 Jan 13

Ozhair said :

Awesome shots, Al. Can I ask what settings you had the camera on?

Sure. I use a Hahnel Giga T Pro II programmable remote (about $100). I set the camera up looking out the window upstairs on widest zoom, focus on a distant object then turn autofocus off. RAW pic files only.
I started on ISO200 then 400 when it got darker. Started on F22, then 16 then 13. Shutter changed from 3 seconds up to 8 when dark.
It’s all about letting enough light in to have the lightning show well, while allowing a reasonably long exposure so you are more likely to catch the bolt. I missed some absolute pearlers between shots…
So in the end (full night) it was on 18mm, 8 seconds, F13, ISO400, with the remote taking shots every 9 seconds. So a 8:9 chance of getting any lightning in frame.
Then I had to sort through more than 500 frames…

Awesome shots, Al. Can I ask what settings you had the camera on?

Fantastic shots

Madam Cholet12:28 pm 06 Jan 13

Great pics, and you’re right pictures of lightening are always so interesting to look at. We got caught in the storm at Weston whilst having fish and chips! Quite glorious to experience the noise of the storm and cooling wind, rain and hail…apart from the trembling four year old clinging to my leg!

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