Lightning photograph

Lightning photos. A how-to.

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How to take photographs of lightning with a Nikon D300 or Nikon D300s DSLR camera.
Wow two photoblog posts in two days. That must be some kind of a record. Today's photo is one I shot last year, edited and then forgot about. So I figured I might as well get it online.

Also since posting some earlier lightning photographs I often get asked "how do you take photos of lightning?" So here's a basic how-to. Using the above photo of lightning hitting Sky Tower as an example. As per normal shot with my Nikon D300 SLR.

Note: this guide should work just as well for a Nikon D300s DSLR, and many other Nikon SLRs. If you're prepared to read your camera's manual, then the bulk of this guide will work for almost any DSLR.

Step 1. Get a storm. Easy enough if you live somewhere that has regular storms passing through. If not you might want to consider it when planning your next holiday. Auckland gets a few each year... More often than not lightning photos work best att night. But sometimes the storm itself will naturally darken things enough. So don't rule out the possibility of getting a shot just because its day time. Step 2. Find a safe location to photograph from. Get somewhere dry for yourself and your camera gear. Preferable out of the wind to avoid camera vibration. You must always keep in mind being safe yourself. You are after all out and about in a lightning storm. Use your brain. Don't set up under trees. If you can see lightning hitting buildings around you, don't sling your tripod over your shoulder and go for a walk in it. When I shot the lightning photos in Wisconson I used building entrances and bus shelters as cover. In the example above I simply setup on the balcony off our bedroom. Step 3. Set up your camera. A tripod is essential for this sort of photography as long exposures are needed. The biggest and heaviest you can carry is best. Then frame your shot. Try to include some foreground of some sort. A shot of lightning against a black sky can wind up rather boring. Also a wide angle zoom lens will be very useful here. A big prime might be tempting, but these are not ideal conditions to be shooting under. You might not be able to "just move the tripod forward a little". I don't own a wide angle zoom, and my 10mm prime was way too wide for this shot. Instead I used a Nikkor 18-105 VR. The kit lens that comes with the D90. It worked fine for this shot. Lightning photo tip : As in the case of Sky Tower (above) big tall structures get hit most often during lightning storms. So they can be a good subject to start with. Also once you have your shot framed turn the lens focusing motor off. Once set you don't want the lens adjusting itself between photographs. I've seen several people recommend turning any stabilisation off. I've experimented with this and found no discernible difference in results.

Step 4. Camera settings.
As always with camera settings you'll want to adjust things to get everything you want in your shot. A general rule of thumb with lightning is, less light is better. The lightning itself will provide more light than you need.

Exposure length: This is the most important element in getting a lightning photo. Obviously lightning flashes happen very quickly. Too quickly to snap off a frame and capture it, and trying to guess when its going to happen is pointless. So the trick is to use a long exposure times. Have the shutter open "watching" the sky for as long as possible. Exactly how long an exposure will very. While taking shots of distant slow moving storms I've found 2 minutes or more just fine. Yet when right under a fast violent storm anything more than 5 to 10 seconds was too much. Start at 30 seconds then adjust accordingly. Also turn any long exposure noise reduction off. This function will otherwise cut your "watching the sky" time in half.

Note : Most cameras will require the use of an advanced remote control with the your shutter speed to set to "bulb" for automated exposures of greater than 30 seconds.

ISO setting: Use the lowest ISO setting your camera has available. In most DSLRs this will be 50 to 100 ISO. This is not just reducing the light being recorded, but also helping to reduce noise in the frame. In the example above it was set to ISO 200 as I forgot to change it.

Lens speed: You want to use the slowest lens speed (the highest f-stop number) you can get away with, while still retaining any additional scenery in your frame. Again reducing the amount of light entering the camera. Since you'll be working with long exposures, you can wind it right out to start with. My example above was shot at f/22.

Automatic exposures: Next make things easy for yourself. You could of course press the shutter yourself every 30 seconds. But this gets tedious and even using a remote you risk introducing vibration. Fortunately the D300 (and many other cameras) have a build in solution. Nikon calls it "Interval timer shooting" and its found under the shooting menu. It allows the camera to automatically take an exposure every so many seconds. So if you're taking 30 second exposures set it up to take one every 31 seconds, etc. This means you can virtually "watch the sky" for the entire duration of a storm if you desire.

For my above shot I setup the camera to take a very large number of shots then went downstairs and watched TV.

Step 4. Rinse and repeat.
Once you've got all that done you wait ... and wait ... and wait ... until you see lightning where you're shooting. All going well you got it in your frame. Stop the camera shooting and check your results. Adjust as you think best and try again. There is always a bit of luck involved.


Step 5. Edit your photo.
Theres not really anything special needed for editing a lightning photo. However one thing that can product great results is merging multiple shots. If you have several lightning strikes all photographed from the same position, you can combine them into a single image. I've never managed to get the frames to successfully do this, but there are some great examples out there if you hunt around a bit.

And thats really it. Good luck!

Got a great tip on photographing lightning or your own lightning photo?
Add a comment by clicking the comments link at the bottom of this post.

Photo of lightning striking Sky Tower, Auckland , New Zealand.
Image Description:	Lightning strike on Sky Tower, Auckland, New Zealand.
Camera Make:	Nikon Corporation.	Camera Model:	Nikon D300 Digital SLR (DSLR).	Date:	26th August 2009.
Focal Length:	18mm	35mm Equiv Focal Length:	27mm	Aperture:	f/22
White Balance:	Manual.	Flash Used:	No.	Exposure Time:	30 seconds.
Light Source:	Cloudy	Metering Mode:	Spot.	Exposure Mode:	Manual.
ISO:	200		Lens Used:	Nikon 18-105mm VR DX.
Accessories Utilised:	Nikon MB-D10 battery grip, Scandisk Extream IV CompactFlash, Manfrotto 055x Prob tripod and 486RC2 head. Nikon EN-EL3e Li-ion battery pack.
Software:	Converted from RAW with Nikon Capture NX. Post editing with The Gimp 2.5.
Photo edits:	Minor crop. Levels and sharpen. Add border and scale.
Photographer Comments:		OK, if a little boring lightning photograph.
Model Credit:	N/A.	Photograph Copyright: ©	Glen Webber 2009. All rights reserved.

And yet another photograph up. See I told ya. Cheers, Glen. Like my photos? Follow me on twitter @glen_co_nz. Thoughts or opinion? leave a comment below, by clicking the comments link.