12 January 2009

Images of Canberra - The lightning last night

| johnboy
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It was one hell of an electrical storm last night. RandomGit has sent in a photo taken by one of his friends for your consideration. (Click on the image for a larger version)

The Git sent it in with the following note:

    “Though Lightning shots are a dime a dozen, this one is panormaic and catches a moment when Telstra tower sucks one in.”

You can check out the photographer’s work here: http://www.jgphotographics.com/.

Got an image of Canberra you want to share with the world? Email it to images@the-riotact.com

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ant said :

Damn, now it’s Thursday is the heat then some cooldown. The weather is all over the place right now. 38c on Wed, 36c on Thursday, and then it PLUMMETS down to an arctic 31c on Friday. Anyway, that all points to something happening Thursday evening sometime.

arctic, ant? dropping from 35c to 19…. now that was an arctic drop…

my heater kicked in. global warming…

Damn, now it’s Thursday is the heat then some cooldown. The weather is all over the place right now. 38c on Wed, 36c on Thursday, and then it PLUMMETS down to an arctic 31c on Friday. Anyway, that all points to something happening Thursday evening sometime.

cyborgr, wednesday is now forecast to be 38c, with a bit of a drop the next day. I reckon that extreme heating, and then a sudden cool down should be good for a storm. There’ll be some cool air arriving from somewhere.

I haven’t nailed lightning yet. My pro-sumer just overexposes a big bright nothing on a long shutter, but I’m soon to acquire a relative’s 350d so have high hopes of finally getting something with it.

Jeff Gilbert, aka cyborgr, took the photo, not me.

Devil_n_Disquiz9:08 pm 12 Jan 09

Mr JG, Great shot. Mt Ainslie also took a hit last night as I was driving up towards Fyshwick. Had the imprint of the strike burned into my retinas for quite sometime.

Hows things at CAvG ?

Thanks for the comments about the photo. The photo was taken with a Canon DSLR. The settings I used for this was 15 sec exposure at f5.0 set at 100iso. The photo was taken out my bedroom window in Guhgahlin. I hope there will be more light show’s later in the week

I know nothing about the finer points of photography but would absolutely love to be able to love to take pic’s like the one taken by the Git. Well done!

Can we have this pic on the 2010 Riotact Calender?

It wasn’t just Telstra Tower last night, the TV tower at Tuggeranong was taking some wonderful hits as well, giant 3 pronged bolts from the sky – I just wish I owned a decent DSLR.

spectra – low ISOenables less hot pixels – I primarily take low light exposures over 30 seconds with no noise reduction and on ISO200 – yet to get any hot pixels.

I am sure they are a valid phenomenon but I am yet to experience them.

I must say though I have done some amazing 3+hr shots of stars at night with a rocky ridge in the foreground – something which will blow DSLR’s out of the water is loooooong exposures – because they start getting noisy at about 5 minutes for me… but never had hot pixels.

Gungahlin: Can’t see any reason that technique shouldn’t work with DSLRs as well – great idea, I’d never thought of it. Time for some playing next storm, methinks 🙂
(The only caveat I can think of is that with DSLRs, the longer you leave the shutter open, the more “hot pixels” you tend to get. These can be removed with photoshop, it’s just more fiddly than if you can avoid them in the first place with shorter exposures).

Gungahlin Al2:36 pm 12 Jan 09

My dad – once a professional photographer in Canberra’s early days – showed me a dead easy way to take lightning and fireworks shots. Not sure how it works with the new digital SLRs though.

Get yourself a black hat. Set camera on tripod and affix cable release. Hold hat in front of and around lens without touching it and lock cable release on (with appropriate untimed shot setting). Wait. When a bolt goes off, whip the hat away without touching the camera then whip it back into place. For fireworks this allows you to stack multiple shots on top of each other, which can be great.

Of course this needs a relatively low ambient light level or the backdrop may end up overexposed and/or blurred.

PS: good shot and there were some great boutas of rolling thunder last night.

Holden Caulfield2:10 pm 12 Jan 09

Awesome pic to the Git!

What a cracker of a shot. I wonder if the photographer plans to put it up on weatherzone? Many of the weatheries are also keen photographers and storm shots are always enjoyed, they’d love that one for sure.

turn off AF, not turn of.

Lightning photos = tripod – camera on full manual settinfs – I use f5.6 iso 200 and between 5 to 30 second shutter – turn off low light noise reduction if you have it.

Also turn of AF and manually focus on a distant pin prick of light until its sharp – or focus on infinity

Its really hit and miss so spend as little time as you can between frames.

Good capture rg

Steve_Pedestrian1:37 pm 12 Jan 09

lobster said :

Any tips on getting lightning photos?

I always seem to miss them.

Also, what settings should the camera be on?

1) Use a tripod as you would normally have to have a time delay setting on the shutter.
2) Be patient
3) Don’t stand under a tree

The GPATS lightning tracker shows the progress of the storm, quite interesting:

http://www.gpats.com.au/php/repository/Canberra.html

Excellant photo,did think about getting the camera out…next time

Any tips on getting lightning photos?

I always seem to miss them.

Also, what settings should the camera be on?

Fabulous photo.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy1:02 pm 12 Jan 09

I stood out on my driveway for a while last night watching the show. Spectacular view from our place. Plus our lawn got some rain!

Great photo. Was it taken in Gungahlin? I even left the cricket at one stage to go outside and have a look 😉

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