Inspired by Amy

[JimFox]

After seeing Amy's awesome lightning photo I was just a bit envious and jealous. So last night while at my daughters north of Denver I went out to my jeep and saw the sky being filled full of lightning, I ran in and grabbed my cameras and drove a couple of blocks to an open field and this is one of the shots I got. It was so cool seeing most of the sky simply being opened up and ripped apart by the lightning. Thank you Amy!

One of the things I noticed in processing this is there is a dozen different ways to go in terms of White Balance. I will be letting Ben use of my shots from last night for Let's Play this week as I think it would be fun to see different ways of dealing with the varied WB the lightning seemed to cause.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

 

[Amy Nelson]

Most excellent Jim! How did you end up shooting this? Long exposure NR or Bulb mode

 

[AlanLichty]

I like this shot as well as the notion of playing with your rejects - not a lot of lightning up here in the NW to try this myself.

 

[JimFox]

Most excellent Jim! How did you end up shooting this? Long exposure NR or Bulb mode

Thanks Amy! It was dark (9:50pm) I took one test shot, I was in Aperture mode. It was a bit dark, I adjusted the Exposure Compensation by 2 stops, that made it a 30 sec exposure and I just shot. The exposures turned out great. I got about a dozen shots before the lightning was too much overhead and the raindrops were starting.

 

[JimFox]

I like this shot as well as the notion of playing with your rejects - not a lot of lightning up here in the NW to try this myself.

Thanks Alan. I had to use self control (which is in short supply) to save a couple of the images that include the ground and the lightning. It will be one of those I send to Ben. I think it will be cool to see not only how everyone deals with the WB, but also the ground layer as I was not able to block all of the distant city lights.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Great one Jim and this will be a great let’s play subject

 

[AlanLichty]

Thanks Alan. I had to use self control (which is in short supply) to save a couple of the images that include the ground and the lightning. It will be one of those I send to Ben. I think it will be cool to see not only how everyone deals with the WB, but also the ground layer as I was not able to block all of the distant city lights.

What is this self control you speak of?

 

[JimFox]

What is this self control you speak of?

Ha ha… I had to exercise self control just to take this... It was about 9:50pm at night, I was going out to my jeep to run to Sonic as I wanted a half price strawberry shake from Sonic before they closed at 10pm. I realized that there was only going to be time for one or the other. It was either going to be shoot lightning or get a strawberry shake. I know how fast lightning can change or disappear... I ended up going thirsty last night.

 

[Douglas Sherman]

Great image, Jim. This a wonderful example of how much cloud to cloud lightning takes place during a thunderstorm. In fact, there are about three times as many cloud to cloud events as there are ground to cloud events. The reason I say ground to cloud is because that is the lightning you see in a thunderstorm. Air is a poor conductor of electricity so an ionized channel must be established from a cloud to the ground before a lightning strike occurs. This occurs as a step by step process which produces a step leader which can't be seen because it is only hot enough to produce infrared light. Once the step leader is established it allows electrons to flow between the cloud and the ground. But like cars at a stop light, the cars that move first are the ones at the front of the line. Thus, the lightning strike you see moves from the ground up toward the cloud. This has been documented by high speed photography.

A lighting detector for your camera can sense the infrared light and trigger the shutter to release to capture the lightning bolt which happens a fraction of a second later.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Great image, Jim. This a wonderful example of how much cloud to cloud lightning takes place during a thunderstorm. In fact, there are about three times as many cloud to cloud events as there are ground to cloud events. The reason I say ground to cloud is because that is the lightning you see in a thunderstorm. Air is a poor conductor of electricity so an ionized channel must be established from a cloud to the ground before a lightning strike occurs. This occurs as a step by step process which produces a step leader which can't be seen because it is only hot enough to produce infrared light. Once the step leader is established it allows electrons to flow between the cloud and the ground. But like cars at a stop light, the cars that move first are the ones at the front of the line. Thus, the lightning strike you see moves from the ground up toward the cloud. This has been documented by high speed photography.

A lighting detector for your camera can sense the infrared light and trigger the shutter to release to capture the lightning bolt which happens a fraction of a second later.

First off nice image Jim. Never had the opportunity to do this myself.

Douglas, good explanation of science behind this.

 

[Beth]

nice capture jim!

 

[JimFox]

Great image, Jim. This a wonderful example of how much cloud to cloud lightning takes place during a thunderstorm. In fact, there are about three times as many cloud to cloud events as there are ground to cloud events. The reason I say ground to cloud is because that is the lightning you see in a thunderstorm. Air is a poor conductor of electricity so an ionized channel must be established from a cloud to the ground before a lightning strike occurs. This occurs as a step by step process which produces a step leader which can't be seen because it is only hot enough to produce infrared light. Once the step leader is established it allows electrons to flow between the cloud and the ground. But like cars at a stop light, the cars that move first are the ones at the front of the line. Thus, the lightning strike you see moves from the ground up toward the cloud. This has been documented by high speed photography.

A lighting detector for your camera can sense the infrared light and trigger the shutter to release to capture the lightning bolt which happens a fraction of a second later.

Thanks so much Doug for some of the science behind the lightning. That made for informative reading.