This has been somewhat of a goal of mine for many, many, years. I finally got something decent for my efforts.
There was a nice line of t-storms off to my southeast tonight. As soon as I was noticing some lightning flashes, I went outside to look. The sky was clear, except for the storm cells, and they were at least 20 - 30 miles away (I know, because I checked weather radar).
I've known for many months, that with my D-40, the only real way to capture lightning is to just get lucky and capture an image as it lights up. I've tried Time-lapse, but all I get is a fuzzy glow. And, of course, the more frames you capture, the better chance you have. I've been keeping my camera set to Burst mode since I figured out how to do that.
I got out my tripod, mounted the camera, aimed, and zoomed in somewhat. I put the camera is complete manual, both shutter and apeture. However, I had no idea what F-stop or exposure settings would work, so I just started guessing. I set the lens for Manual, and focused on a streetlight a ways away.
Ok, I'm all set! (Or so I thought.) I pressed down the shutter button, and held it down. Click-click-click-click, it was happily capturing images like crazy. I would try to time the captures with "outbursts" of imbedded lightning within the cell. However, all I got on my captures was the streetlight that I had used to focus. OK, I must not be getting enough light onto the chip, or I'm just really unlucky with my timing. I looked at my settings, and realized I probably had the shutter set to fast, and the apeture to narrow. Ok, open the apeture up all the way to F4.2. I ended up setting the speed at 1.6 (not 1.6", which gets into some time-lapse). I waited, pressed the shutter, and click click click the camera was capturing images, but slower. I did that for about 3 minutes, and THEN I ACTUALLY GOT ONE! I knew I had it, as I saw it on the LED screen as the camera wrote the images to the card. Here's the first one:
[attachment 77696 2008NightLightning1-1.JPG]
Well, that cell started slowing down on it's activity level. But, there was a cell further to the south that was popping like crazy. I moved about 20 yards, set the tripod up again, and aimed the camera. Now, I think I know what I'm doing a little better. I framed up the shot as best I could, and started trying for captures. I ended up getting two more with some color. Here's the best of those:
[attachment 77697 2008NightLightning1-2.JPG]
The third has even less lightning in it than the second shot, but is a nice shade of red.
Just so you all know, as I said, I was shooting completely manual, speed at 1.6, F4.2, with manual focus. The only thing I did to the images on my laptop were to crop and resize.
HH from Allen in OK
There was a nice line of t-storms off to my southeast tonight. As soon as I was noticing some lightning flashes, I went outside to look. The sky was clear, except for the storm cells, and they were at least 20 - 30 miles away (I know, because I checked weather radar).
I've known for many months, that with my D-40, the only real way to capture lightning is to just get lucky and capture an image as it lights up. I've tried Time-lapse, but all I get is a fuzzy glow. And, of course, the more frames you capture, the better chance you have. I've been keeping my camera set to Burst mode since I figured out how to do that.
I got out my tripod, mounted the camera, aimed, and zoomed in somewhat. I put the camera is complete manual, both shutter and apeture. However, I had no idea what F-stop or exposure settings would work, so I just started guessing. I set the lens for Manual, and focused on a streetlight a ways away.
Ok, I'm all set! (Or so I thought.) I pressed down the shutter button, and held it down. Click-click-click-click, it was happily capturing images like crazy. I would try to time the captures with "outbursts" of imbedded lightning within the cell. However, all I got on my captures was the streetlight that I had used to focus. OK, I must not be getting enough light onto the chip, or I'm just really unlucky with my timing. I looked at my settings, and realized I probably had the shutter set to fast, and the apeture to narrow. Ok, open the apeture up all the way to F4.2. I ended up setting the speed at 1.6 (not 1.6", which gets into some time-lapse). I waited, pressed the shutter, and click click click the camera was capturing images, but slower. I did that for about 3 minutes, and THEN I ACTUALLY GOT ONE! I knew I had it, as I saw it on the LED screen as the camera wrote the images to the card. Here's the first one:
[attachment 77696 2008NightLightning1-1.JPG]
Well, that cell started slowing down on it's activity level. But, there was a cell further to the south that was popping like crazy. I moved about 20 yards, set the tripod up again, and aimed the camera. Now, I think I know what I'm doing a little better. I framed up the shot as best I could, and started trying for captures. I ended up getting two more with some color. Here's the best of those:
[attachment 77697 2008NightLightning1-2.JPG]
The third has even less lightning in it than the second shot, but is a nice shade of red.
Just so you all know, as I said, I was shooting completely manual, speed at 1.6, F4.2, with manual focus. The only thing I did to the images on my laptop were to crop and resize.
HH from Allen in OK