I had been getting jealous of all of @Bob great Lightning images he has posted recently, and fortunately for me, just in the nick of time some thunderstorms rolled in to Northern Colorado by my daughters. I had been busy running errands with them and it was pushing sunset. We got back just in time for me to jump into my new 4Runner and take off to the local ponds (I already had cameras in the back of it).
Because of the stormy conditions the sky was pretty cloudy, but the sky was open a bit to the west over the Rockies and these awesome rays burst through just as I was getting to the parking lot. I grabbed my camera, camera bag and tripod and started to run to the ponds. The 2 ladies who were standing and admiring the sunset made a comment to me about slowing down because it's "never too late" they told me. As I ran past, I said to them that it can always be too late. They had no clue as a photographer that the right light and/or color can often be fleeting, and may only last for 10 seconds, so yeah it can be too late.
And as it turns out, I was too late for the sunset. It only took me about 3 minutes to get to pond, but by then the color was gone. So yeah, it was too late for the sunset.... But.... since I had ran over there, I decided to hang out a bit and just kind of walk around hoping that maybe I would get some post sunset colors. About 5 or 10 minutes later, I noticed a flash of light out of the corner of my eye, and I quickly looked up. My first thought was maybe it was lightning. After all there was storm clouds all around me, and I could see where it was raining in several places. About 30 seconds later, another flash of light and I caught it. But it was to the East, so that meant I needed to run around to the back side of the pond, which I quickly did.
I ran to the other side for 2 reasons, where I was at, there were some tall trees close by, and I was close enough they were blocking part of the sky, so I wanted to move back from them, and also by moving away I could get on the other side of the pond and get some reflections of color in the pond. It was pretty windy, so it wouldn't be a detailed reflection, but a nice reflection of the colors would work for me.
I spotted another lightning strike as I was nearing where I wanted to be. I quickly set up my tripod and camera, plugged in my Remote Release. I had a polarizer on, it would knock enough light off that I could get the camera set up to a 3 second exposure and I locked in my Remote Release and let it fire away. I have mentioned before that I do have a Lightning Trigger, but in the 12 years or so that I have had it I have never used it. I have replaced the batteries in it twice, but still never have used it. I mean to use it. I am sure one day I will use it... but for me, it's just faster to put on a ND filter or polarizer to cut some light if needed, and adjust the ISO and Aperture in Manual Mode to get me a 2 to 3 second exposure, and lock in the Remote Release and let her rip.
It's a bit more work later on, because I have to scroll through a couple of hundred exposures to pick out the ones with lightning, but on the plus side, I catch them all, and none get missed. And also on the plus side, I can create a timelapse from the series of images I have shot.
I had thought this would be a short write up, I thought wrong, sorry.
All comments are welcome,
Jim
PS. In about an hours time I have close to 40 lightning strikes I got. I also had shot some video, and will put together something soon.
PPS. This is a single image. There were a few multi-strike bursts.
Because of the stormy conditions the sky was pretty cloudy, but the sky was open a bit to the west over the Rockies and these awesome rays burst through just as I was getting to the parking lot. I grabbed my camera, camera bag and tripod and started to run to the ponds. The 2 ladies who were standing and admiring the sunset made a comment to me about slowing down because it's "never too late" they told me. As I ran past, I said to them that it can always be too late. They had no clue as a photographer that the right light and/or color can often be fleeting, and may only last for 10 seconds, so yeah it can be too late.
And as it turns out, I was too late for the sunset. It only took me about 3 minutes to get to pond, but by then the color was gone. So yeah, it was too late for the sunset.... But.... since I had ran over there, I decided to hang out a bit and just kind of walk around hoping that maybe I would get some post sunset colors. About 5 or 10 minutes later, I noticed a flash of light out of the corner of my eye, and I quickly looked up. My first thought was maybe it was lightning. After all there was storm clouds all around me, and I could see where it was raining in several places. About 30 seconds later, another flash of light and I caught it. But it was to the East, so that meant I needed to run around to the back side of the pond, which I quickly did.
I ran to the other side for 2 reasons, where I was at, there were some tall trees close by, and I was close enough they were blocking part of the sky, so I wanted to move back from them, and also by moving away I could get on the other side of the pond and get some reflections of color in the pond. It was pretty windy, so it wouldn't be a detailed reflection, but a nice reflection of the colors would work for me.
I spotted another lightning strike as I was nearing where I wanted to be. I quickly set up my tripod and camera, plugged in my Remote Release. I had a polarizer on, it would knock enough light off that I could get the camera set up to a 3 second exposure and I locked in my Remote Release and let it fire away. I have mentioned before that I do have a Lightning Trigger, but in the 12 years or so that I have had it I have never used it. I have replaced the batteries in it twice, but still never have used it. I mean to use it. I am sure one day I will use it... but for me, it's just faster to put on a ND filter or polarizer to cut some light if needed, and adjust the ISO and Aperture in Manual Mode to get me a 2 to 3 second exposure, and lock in the Remote Release and let her rip.
It's a bit more work later on, because I have to scroll through a couple of hundred exposures to pick out the ones with lightning, but on the plus side, I catch them all, and none get missed. And also on the plus side, I can create a timelapse from the series of images I have shot.I had thought this would be a short write up, I thought wrong, sorry.
All comments are welcome,
Jim
PS. In about an hours time I have close to 40 lightning strikes I got. I also had shot some video, and will put together something soon.
PPS. This is a single image. There were a few multi-strike bursts.
