In my path to learning more about photography, I’m keeping my art sense in mind when I shoot things. The big idea behind much of my art is to simply try new things, to experiment with new methods. Along those lines, I decided to try shooting some lightning.
Conveniently, there was an angry storm outside, so my idea was timed pretty well.
I set up the tripod just inside the back door, with my Canon T3i mounted on top. Having (unsuccessfully) tried to shoot the moon, I figured similar settings would be a good idea (failure is how I decide on good ideas). I left the ISO at 200, set the shutter to 10 seconds (and 15, on occasion), and the aperture to a varied set between 5.6 and 9.
Those seemed to be pretty decent settings, and I captured quite a number of bolts. Remember, I’m an amateur at all of this, so you pro photogs don’t go smacking me around too much. Also, since lightning is what we might call “unpredictable”, I actually snapped quite a lot more duds than bolts. But, as they say, it’s the final ones that count.
This was also a great chance to work with Camera Raw again, just like last time. In fact, working with CR actually surprised me a few times on these shots, bringing out things that I didn’t see initially. Click on all of the photos for a larger view.
Speaking of not seeing things, I didn’t see this first one go by until I saw it on the camera. I saw the flash, but I didn’t realize that I’d captured the bolt until I looked at the screen to show my daughter how it was going.
I like that the camera catches the little tiny bolts as they spread out from the larger one(s). There’s little chance I could ever see that in person, so it’s great to see in the photo.
You’ll also notice through all of these that I was toying with the CR settings quite a lot. They are all from the same storm, only different sides of the house.
This next one has that nice, forked lightning look. It’s the classic idea, and it’s great to see how it spreads out. There’s a sharpness to it, almost a malevolence really (says the horror artist).
The next bolt is a great example of how CR really helps out quite a lot. When I first looked at it, the image was pretty blah. It seemed mostly midtone, and, while there was a bolt there, it didn’t really pop.
So I worked the settings in CR to see what I could do with it, and I quickly realized that it was better than I thought it was at first. The bolt was sharper than it seemed, and looked even cooler as it emerged from behind the cloud. It gave a great layered effect to the sky.
The last one here is actually closer to the first one taken. The storm was still mostly in the distance, and it hadn’t circled around the town yet (as above). I thought the lightning in the distance looked nice, so I ran it through CR.
It was then that I noticed how complex it really was. Below is the shot from a distance, which I think turned out nicely. The blue at the top gives it a different look than the other photos, and is a natural (non-CR) effect.
But the closeup might even be better, because you can see the complexity in what seems like a flash to most of us. The bolts twist and turn, and fork all over the place. Yet, there’s a definitely direction, a sense of purpose if you will.
In short, beautiful.
