How

How to capture lighting images.

All of my images are taken from my own home. Electrical storms are dangerous. Staying safe is your first priority. Do not seek exposed sites to shoot lightning because lightning may shoot you first.

Camera

Your camera should have a “manual” or “bulb” mode and should be capable of mounting on a tripod. It must also have a manual focus facility.

Lens Selection

A wide angle lens is preferred, especially for beginners and should always be used if the storm is close. If the storm is distant, I might try a 50mm fixed focal length lens. The narrower the field of view, the less chance there is of a lightning strike being captured.

Mount

Mount the camera on a sturdy tripod in a safe sheltered place and ensure the tripod is rigidly weighted to avoid wind gust disturbances.

Location

Never set up in an unsafe place out in the open or under a tree or umbrella. Even a metal tripod can attract a lightning strike so select a location carefully.

Control

Attach a “bulb” shutter control device for manual shooting or an intervalometer for continuous shooting. Either way, there will be gaps between shots when strikes may be missed, so keep shooting with a minimum delay.

Exposure and Settings

Focus manually on a distant object and set the camera programme selector to bulb (or manual).
If the storm moves closer, then refocus on a closer object.
Set the ISO to 100 or 200 (do not use auto-ISO).
Set aperture to about f/5.6 to f/8, depending on light level.
If completely dark, set shutter speed to 20-30 seconds.
If not completely dark, reduce exposure and/or adjust the f-stop.
If it’s broad daylight, storms may require short exposures of only 0.5 to 2 seconds, meaning you will end up with hundreds of saved images.

White Balance

I am open minded about the best white balance setting to use, so I have normally set it to ‘auto’. Some experts do recommend the ‘auto’ setting. Others recommend a ‘cool’ setting (e.g. ‘fluorescent’). If you shoot raw frames you can adjust the white balance in post-processing.

Aiming

Check which direction the storm is seen and use the weather radar to confirm which direction it seems to be heading towards. Point the camera towards the best estimated direction of the approaching storm.
Try to include a ground feature in the image field of view and take a test shot.
Adjust the settings and aim, to suit.
After you start, do not readjust the aim, unless the camera is very poorly aimed. This will allow the opportunity afterwards to stack some of the images.

Shooting

Grab a chair, sit down next to the tripod and keep shooting until the storm passes. If a nearby object such as a tree is in the field of view, try illuminating it. Enjoy the storm.

My night-time lightning photography technique has been to take continuous 20 to 30 second exposures at night, either with an intervalometer or by manual use of a remote button. Occasionally a good strike is missed during the delay between shots.

The technique provides very little scope for daylight storms and a lightning trigger may assist. See below.

Processing

After the storm, check the frames and separate the successful images. Process them slightly with Photoshop to contrast the strikes and crop the image as appropriate and resize to suit. The session is a success if at least one decent strike is recorded on camera!

Use your favourite software to stack multiple strikes into a single image. If you had to adjust the tripod or re-aim the camera during the storm, sort them into ‘before’ & ‘after’ shots.

As an astronomer, I have found that freeware such as ‘StarTrails’ will stack quite well.

Due to long exposures, you may need to clean up pixel noise.

Trigger:

To add a further dimension to my repertoire, I purchased a lightning trigger, which takes images only when it senses a lightning flash. No bright strikes get missed and fewer dud shots are taken – mostly those which consist of a cloud flash with no direct visibility of the bolt itself.

A trigger results in less strikes lost and less image frames to review afterwards. The downside is that the flash image is a bit weaker and the exposure may need to increased to compensate. A trigger will also provide more opportunities for taking daylight storm shots.

DSLR Lightning Trigger built by Martin Marriette. I bought it through the Ice In Space webshop but you can also go to the Martin’s own website.

Summary

So here is a summary of my lightning strike capture technique:

Mount the camera on a tripod in a safe place
Point the camera towards the storm.
Ensure the tripod is rigid.
If the storm is close, use a wide field lens.
If the storm is distant, try a narrower field lens.
Attach a remote shutter control.
Set the camera programme selector to manual.
Set the ISO to 100 (do not use auto-ISO).
Set aperture initially to about f/5.6 to f/8, depending on light level.
If completely dark, set shutter speed to about 30 seconds.
If not completely dark, reduce exposure and/or adjust the f-stop.
If it’s broad daylight, don’t bother, unless you use a trigger.
Set white balance to auto or fluorescent.
Aim the camera towards the estimated lightning region.
Try to include a ground feature in the image field of view, unless storm is overhead.
Select manual focus and focus on a distant object.
Take a test shot.
Adjust the settings to suit.
Grab a chair and sit down next to the tripod.
Unless the camera is poorly aimed, do not readjust the aim.

LIGHTNING FOCUS ⚡