Getting a good lightning shot is always frustrating - and you are darn lucky at best if you get anything usable. Even those lightning triggers don't work all that well. Here is the setup I now use - it requires two cameras right next to each other: both cameras are set to 30 second exposures. Of course, that means that after you take each shot there is a 30-40 second delay while the camera makes the second "black slide" exposure and then writes the shot to the memory card - that is when most of the great lightning bolts happen! So what I do is wait for the first camera to finish taking the shot, then I trip the shutter on camera #2 - also a 30-second exposure. I repeat the process the entire time the light show is going on, alternating the two cameras. This gives me only a few seconds without an exposure being made by one camera or the other.
The above technique works great when it is dark outside and a 30-second exposure is possible. It was much too light this morning for this technique so I had to resort to plan B. I put the vari-ND filter on my big camera and set it at f11 and 30-second exposures were just fine. But I only have one of those filters so the best I could do with my backup camera was f22 at about 2 seconds. That meant that while Camera #1 was taking the dark slide exposure I would be making a series of two-second exposures with Camera #2 - hoping all the while the best lightning would happen while Camera #1 was making the exposure - but in 20 minutes of shooting this morning I did not get a SINGLE good image with the big camera while all the "action" happened with the little camera, including the one shot here with the best bolts - gosh darn it! But that is OK - this will enlarge to 24x36 with no issues (larger on canvas), and more importantly will be a nice full-page spread in the new book.
Tim, the other solution is to buy another vari-ND filter for $350 bucks! This is a good reason why people need to understand these type of pictures just don't just happen by chance and why the price of the photo is more than just the printing costs. Many hours of time, expertise and equipment go into your shots.
Discussion
7 repliesThe above technique works great when it is dark outside and a 30-second exposure is possible. It was much too light this morning for this technique so I had to resort to plan B. I put the vari-ND filter on my big camera and set it at f11 and 30-second exposures were just fine. But I only have one of those filters so the best I could do with my backup camera was f22 at about 2 seconds. That meant that while Camera #1 was taking the dark slide exposure I would be making a series of two-second exposures with Camera #2 - hoping all the while the best lightning would happen while Camera #1 was making the exposure - but in 20 minutes of shooting this morning I did not get a SINGLE good image with the big camera while all the "action" happened with the little camera, including the one shot here with the best bolts - gosh darn it! But that is OK - this will enlarge to 24x36 with no issues (larger on canvas), and more importantly will be a nice full-page spread in the new book.
I am looking forward to the book.