On Wednesday Night (5/13/09) a series of thunderstorms rolled across the Tulsa Metro Area. I setup my camera and tripod on the front porch of my house in hopes of capturing a lightning strike on film. Fortunately the porch awning provided a great barrier against the precipitation.
The photo above was taken using the Bulb setting at F-3.5 or F-4. I was informed later that the ideal F-stop would have been around F-20 or higher, so as to capture the actual lightning strikes more starkly. I was pleased to capture a lightning strike, though it took me 115 shots to get it!
-SPQ 5/16/2009
F20 doesn't make a lot of sense to me, because the bigger the number, the smaller the aperture opening. I would think that F4 would be fine, along with a slow shutter speed (or shutter held open, some cameras can do that) to allow enough light into the camera to capture a strike. If you left the shutter open long enough, you could potentially capture multiple strikes on one frame - also cool. Here's an interesting discussion on Flickr abt capturing lightning. BTW, I like your shot!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.flickr.com/groups/technique/discuss/7509/