Lightning Photography: Fast Reflexes Not Required

Image by Leorex

Lightning is just something that seems difficult to photograph. It comes and goes in a fraction of a second, and if you’re not fast, that perfect shot fades right alongside the lightning itself. At least that’s what a lot of beginning photographers seem to think.

Truth is, lightning photography can be both easy and fun to try. You don’t need (pardon the pun) lightning quick reflexes to produce a great image. You just need a willingness to experiment and a camera with a few basic functions.

Here’s what you need to get started.

Gear up.

Image by Joe Holmes

It doesn’t take a whole lot to be able to starting taking cool photographs of lightning. In terms of digital cameras, look for something that is able to operate in full-manual mode and has a thread for a tripod mount. You’ll need to be able to adjust the aperture, shutter speed and ISO yourself as most automatic modes on digital cameras are ill-suited for lightning photography.

The tripod mount and tripod are very important as well. It’s always amusing to see people stiffly holding their digital cameras out in front of themselves, their faces bathed in the glow of their LCD screens as they try and get a picture of the lightning storm passing through. It just doesn’t work that way. Lightning photography requires that you have a sturdy place to rest your camera. A table or some sort of flat surface will do in a pinch, but a tripod will work better and give you a lot more versatility. The best models are made by Gitzo or Manfrotto, and they’re rather expensive. But any photographer who’s been around a while will tell you that cheapo tripods are a waste of money, and its best to get something reliable from the start. Check out the Bogen-Manfrotto 728B for a good, sturdy entry-level option:

That’s really all you need!

Set up.

Image by andrewomerknapp.

You’re going to want to be able to be situation in one spot for a while, so choose your location carefully. Find a scenic place with level ground for your tripod. Don’t forget to think about rain, as well. Nothing can ruin your lightning photography experience as quickly as a fast-moving storm that drenches your camera

Understand your light

Image by Nguyen-Anh Le

The challenging part of lightning photography is getting the light right. It’s especially difficult in scenes like Le’s image, where there’s a city to be dealt with as well. You have two exposures to worry about: the lightning and the ambient scene. Both exposures have to be balanced and exposed correctly for the shot to work.

The exposure for the lightning is going to be controlled by both the aperture and the ISO setting on the camera. If you’re confused as to what either of these settings are, check out my guide to digital camera settings. Shutter speed is irrelevant when it comes to the exposure of the lightning. This is because lightning is a pulse of light, not a continuous beam. The same amount of light will reach the sensor from one individual beam of lightning whether your shutter is open for one second or five seconds.

Shutter speed is still important because it controls both the number of lightning bolts in your final frame and the ambient exposure. Lightning photography isn’t something where you set the exposure to 1/800th of a second and hope for the best. You use a longer shutter speed in order to give yourself the best chance of capturing as many bolts as possible. But shutter speed also affects your ambient exposure. In
Le’s image, the ambient exposure is the cityscape. Unlike the lightning, lights from the city are continuous, meaning more light from the scene reaches the sensor the longer the shutter is open. If the shutter’s open too long, the cityscape will be blown out.

ISO is important to remember as well. Using a higher ISO increases the sensor’s sensitivity to light. A lightning bolt shot at a small aperture will appear a lot brighter at ISO 1600 than it will at ISO 200.

Putting it all together

Photo by Tetsuya Blues

Here’s how we would go through the process for a lightning shot. Let’s assume, for the purpose of this article, we’re trying to get a picture of lightning at night and that we have an ambient exposure to deal with, like in Tetsuya Blues’ image. Get all setup, and try and judge how far you are from the lightning. Obviously, the further the lightning is away from you, the dimmer it appears to the camera.

To start, set the ISO on the camera to 100. This gives you some flexibility later on if you need to boost the brightness of your image, but you’re going to handle the majority of the exposure through aperture and shutter speed settings. Assuming the lightning is reasonably close, start with a small aperture and a long shutter speed. The small aperture limits the amount of light coming into your lens, meaning you need a longer shutter speed for the city to be exposed properly. With some luck, the longer shutter speed also gives you the benefit of having more lightning bolts in your frame, creating a more dramatic image.

Take a few photos and see what you have. If the lightning is too dim, open up your aperture and decrease your shutter speed. If you’re blowing out the lights coming from the city, leave your aperture where it’s at and speed up your shutter. There’s no real scientific process to lightning photography, and it requires some patience. As long as you have a good idea of what each setting is controlling in terms of exposure, you’ll be able to find the right balance eventually.

The settings for Tetsuya Blues’ photo? A tiny aperture of f/13 and a shutter speed of 20 seconds. She must have been very close to the lightning - most scenes would require a larger aperture than that. A good starting point is somewhere between f/5 and f/8 (remember: larger apertures = smaller f/numbers), with a shutter speed of 10-20 seconds. If you’re shooting during twilight or the daytime, you won’t be able to use a shutter speed that is that long.

The theme for this week’s photo assignment is night, so get out there and shoot some lightning. Post the results to the Cheapshooter Flickr Group by Monday and I’ll highlight them on the site next week. Good luck!

EDIT: For a few more ideas from some Reddit users, click here.

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