Summer Fun: A Flash of Lightning

One of the nice things about summer weather is the occasional summer storm. I love a summer storm and the part I love the most is the lightning associated with the storm. Taking photos of lightning is fun and easy.

If it is after dark when that storm rolls in then taking photos of lightning is exactly like taking photos of fireworks. You can find the tutorial for that by clicking here.


Lightning photo after dark.

Some of the most interesting lightning photos occur not during the night but at dusk. These photos require a different approach.

Hardware

• DSLR Camera or at least a point and shoot camera with ISO adjustment, timer mode, and long shutter adjustment.
• Tripod
• Neutral Density Filter (Optional)
• Remote Trigger if your camera will accept a remote trigger, self timer setting if the camera does not accept a remote trigger.
• Wide Angle Prime or Zoom Lens - 18mm - 28mm will do just fine.
• A flashlight. You will need the flashlight if you need to change settings on the camera and you are not familiar enough to make those changes in the dark.

Lightning photo at dusk.

Camera Settings

• Turn off the flash.
• ISO - 100 - 400
• fStop - f5.6- f32
• Image stabilization - Turn it off.
• Aperture Priority Mode
• Focus - Manual and the focus should be set to infinity.

Technique

• Mount your camera on the tripod and aim it to the part of the sky where the lightning is striking.
• Set the focus and ISO.
• Plug in your remote trigger or set your camera timer. In reality you may be able to press the shutter button manually, without a remote trigger and without a timer. Give it a try and if it jiggles the camera too much then go ahead and take the photo with the timer or hook up a trigger.

The key difference between the nighttime lightning and dusk lightning photography is that the dusk photography requires you to expose for the sky as well as the lightning. This is why I shoot this with aperture priority mode. Aperture priority mode allows the camera to set the exposure for the sky and when the lightning flashes it too will be recorded on the sensor.

One thing you will notice immediately is they length of the shutter times. Depending on how bright it is outside, the shutter times will be between 2 and 10 seconds. If it is too bright outside you will need a neutral density filter. A neutral density filter is like a nice pair of sunglasses for your camera lens. A neutral density (ND) is a dark filter that does not effect the color of the image being recorded. ND filters come in varying strengths, basically an ND 4 filter will be darker than an ND 2 filter. I recommend starting with an ND2 and then add an ND 4 and other ND filters as you can afford them. If the shutter time is not running about 5 - 10 seconds, you will want to use an ND filter.

The ability to capture lighting in a photo is dependent on how fast the lightning is striking, how long the shutter is open, and how many photos you take. The rapidness of lightning strikes is out of your control, but if it is coming fast and furious you will know that you could capture the image with a shorter shutter time. The shutter time is effected by the brightness of the sky and the ISO number you have selected and the aperture number you have selected. An ISO of 200 is going to cause the shutter to stay open longer than an ISO 400 setting. That is because an ISO of 200 takes longer to record an image than the more sensitive ISO 400 setting. The other factor of aperture setting also effects how long the shutter will stay open. I generally like to shoot at about f22. In comparison to an f5.6, an f22 is a very small aperture. I recommend playing around with different aperture settings until you find the style you like. Remember that using a large aperture such as f5.6 is going to cause the shutter to actuate very quickly and you will end up needing an ND filter to slow down the shutter time without overexposing the image. The advantage to using a large aperture is that the lighting may be more dramatic looking on the final image.

It is really a matter of taste and you will have to experiment to determine what works best for you and your style of photography. As I have said I like the look of shooting without an ND filter and setting my aperture adjustment to f22. However, it is not wrong to do it differently. There are many ways to skin a cat. While you are skinning that cat, remember that before you can skin it, you have to catch it. Catching it, in this instance, means taking lots of photographs. When I am taking photographs of lightning, I generally shoot about 30 - 50 exposures to get one really good lightning strike. This high number of attempts is needed where I live because the storms in the desert are usually not as severe as the storms in areas like the South Eastern United States. Less lightning strikes means the lesser the likelihood of capturing a lightning strike in a photograph. In any event, just keep pushing the shutter button as rapidly as the camera will allow. After checking the first few images to see if they look good, don’t worry about previewing the images, just keep shooting. Taking photographs of lightning is about volume. The more photos you take the more likely you are to get a great lightning strike.

Safety

I will conclude today with a word about safety. I don’t stand out in the middle of a storm to shoot lightning photographs. I generally set up in the safety of my home, turn off the lights, and shoot right out an open window or door. If the glass is really clean, I may not even open the window depending on how close to the glass I am and the amount of reflections in the glass. Just use some common sense and be safe when you shoot.

-- Enjoy

Tags: Lightning, Low ISO, Low Light, Aperture Priority, Neutral Density Filter, ND, Filters

Vacation Photography: Fireworks and the 4th. of July

Fireworks, Every kid loves them and every adult secretly loves them. In America the biggest day for fireworks is July the 4th. Taking photographs of fireworks is easy if you have the right tools. Believe it or not I searched my hard drive for some firework photos that I had taken and I just can’t find them. I did find a few a friend of mine had taken with his Nikon camera so I thought I might share a few of his photos taken at an Independence Day party a few years ago.


Photo Credit: John Blandford

Hardware

• DSLR Camera or at least a point and shoot camera with ISO adjustment, timer mode, and long shutter adjustment.
• Tripod
• Remote Trigger, if your camera will accept a remote trigger.
• Wide Angle Prime or Zoom Lens - 18mm - 28mm will do just fine.
• A flashlight. You will need the flashlight if you need to change settings on the camera and you are not familiar enough to make those changes in the dark.

Camera Settings

• Turn off the flash.
• ISO - 100 - 200 (You will be tempted to use a high ISO, but don’t do it. Fireworks are bright and the sky is dark. You are taking photos of the fireworks and not the sky.)
• fStop - start at f8 and if it needs to be brighter, start working towards f2.8. If the scene is over-exposed adjust the fStop smaller towards f11.
• Image stabilization - Turn it off.
• Focus - Manual and the focus should be set to infinity.

Technique

• Mount your camera on the tripod and aim it to the part of the sky where the fireworks will explode.
• Set the focus and ISO.
• Set the shutter time for several seconds up to 30 seconds or set the shutter to bulb if you are using a remote trigger. The important thing to remember here is that the longer the shutter is open, the more fireworks will appear in one shot. If you leave it open 2 seconds you might get one or two bursts and if you leave it open 30 seconds it will look like the grand finale of the show.
• Set your timer if you are not using a remote trigger.
• When the fireworks start, open the shutter and take the photo. If the sky is too blue then you have the fStop adjustment too large and you might try moving it towards f11 and if the scene is too dark then open up the aperture a bit, try f5.6 all the way to f2.8. You can open all the way up if you want; experiment and see what works best for you. Keep reading I am going to show you a little trick that might make you want to keep the setting at f8 even if the sky looks like noonday on the image.

Fix it in post.

Here is a secret: for years, less than perfect in-camera photos were corrected in the darkroom. With a digital darkroom, AKA tools like iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom and Photoshop you have those same controls at the tips of your fingers. I will use the iPhoto program to show you this little post-processing trick. I know that many of you are not using iPhoto for post production. I don’t use iPhoto myself. I selected iPhoto because of the simple interface and the fact that many of my readers do have Apple computers. The principles are the same in every program but the procedure may be very different from program to program. Since this website is about teaching the concept (and the procedures will constantly be changing) I encourage you to get a manual for your post-processing software of choice or see if the help menu of the software can actually be of help. Hear are the concepts of how to post-process your picture:



Photo Credit: John Blandford

The above photograph was taken at f3.5. As you can see the sky is looking pretty bright because it was not really dark enough to be shooting the fireworks but we wanted to play with the camera a bit before it got so dark we could not read the dials and buttons.

This photo is really pretty good as far as exposure goes. It leaves plenty of room to play and in the end the sky is going to be pitch black.

Step 1: Load the image into your photo software.
Step 2: Open the edit or adjustment menu of the software. It might look something like the following photo.



Step 3: Adjust the mid-point of the image. The mid-point is the portion of the graph that represents the middle levels of luminance of the image. In other words grab the slider or bar under the middle part of the graph and move it to the right. This will stretch out the mid-point and will darken the skies a bit. The following photograph is an example of what it may look like. Look at the graph at the top of the adjustment window.



Step 4: Adjust the black point. This is going to be the same type of adjustment as in step three, except this time you will move the slider under the graph, which is otherwise all the way on the left, to the right. Move it until the sky turns black but not so far as to make the fireworks disappear.



Step 5: Increase the saturation, do this by moving the saturation slider to the right until the fireworks are the color you want them to be. Caution: If you plan on printing these images you may want to move the saturation to the point that you really like and then pull it back a bit. Most printers cannot reproduce a highly saturated image.



Step 6: Adjust the temperature or white balance of the image. The temperature of an image is simply how warm (red/yellow) and image is or how cool(blue) it is. To the left is cool and to the right is warm. I like fireworks warm so I start moving it to the right. This will have two effects. The first effect is that the sky will begin to darken a bit more and the second effect will be that the reds will get really red and will even start to glow a bit. Caution: This is saturating the colors a bit as well. If you are planning on printing the image you might want to go back to step 5 after this adjustment.



Step 7: Make any adjustments to the contrast or sharpness that you think may be necessary.

Step 8: Get that image up to Twitter or Facebook and make your friends marvel at your photographic prowess. Well, at least give them something to look at other than grainy, blurred, cell-phone photos taken while drunk on a neighbor’s deck. Caution: Never drink and play with fireworks. It leads to terrible photography no matter how cool the photos look while drunk.


Photo Credit: John Blandford
Before: In camera.


Photo Credit: John Blandford
After: Post processed.


Conclusion

I want to wish everyone a happy holiday weekend. Go out there and try to get some great in-camera photographs of the celebrations. But, don’t worry if they are not perfect-you can fix it in post.

-- Enjoy

Tags: Low Light, Fireworks, Low ISO, Manual Focus, Vacation