On Monday evening, we were treated to a storm around 21:00. The weather had been pretty hot, and storms had been forecast. I was sitting watching the TV and spotted some nice big clouds racing our way, and some lightning.
I immediately jumped out of my chair and went to the back garden and stood and watched for a few moments. The storm clouds were skirting around us; directly above was fairly clear sky. I saw a flash of lightning. “If that flashes again really soon, I’ll get my camera” I thought. Mere seconds later, another big flash of lightning came.
I raced back into the house and got my camera, tripod and other bits, and set them up in the garden. I set the camera to Bulb, pointed it at the storm, and started randomly opening the shutter for a few seconds, waiting for some lightning, then closing it again. Whilst I was doing this, I was opening and closing the aperture, basically going back and forth to random settings. Luckily, the remote control I got with my Olympus C-50 Zoom some time ago, also works with my E-500. So if I set bulb mode, I can open and close the shutter at will, and remotely, so there’s no chance of camera shake.
Initially I was doing two odd things. Firstly, I was putting on some ND filters, which was a pointless endeavour as it just made everything too dark. Although the light was bright, it was fleeting – like a flashgun – so the ND filters just blocked it all out! Also, I had the ISO set to 100, which was a bit too low.
The shot I managed to get was at f10, with an ISO of 320. The storm was pretty busy, so I was afforded the luxury of a) not getting rained on, and b) being able to flick about through settings with plenty of chances to catch something. The first picture is the result of that. I got a few others which lit up the clouds nicely. There’s an equal number which look like an average night sky, even though when they were taken, there were some very nice big flashes! Just goes to show how you’ve really got to get the settings spot on, or it just doesn’t work.
I hope there’s a few more distant storms, and I’m somewhere where I can catch them. The best pictures of lightning I’ve seen have been taken in big, flat, open rural areas – not the middle of a suburban housing estate, in a valley!
Still, it’s fun to do. I’m sure I’ll get some better shots in future, now I know the rough settings that work, and make a good starting point.