How to Photograph Lightning

Capturing that awesome lightning shot is a dream of many photographers. It takes timing, patience and perseverance. It can be done digitally or with film-as long as your camera has a "bulb" setting, you're good to go. You'll probably shoot quite a few dead frames before you get a good shot, but there are techniques that work.

Difficulty:

Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Good manual control camera with bulb mode or time exposure mode
• Tripod
• Cable release
• 100 speed film (or less)
• Flashlight

1. Study the weather patterns in your area so you'll know the best place get a good view to shoot. Watch a particular storm before shooting. See where the lightning is, how far away and what type it is. This makes it easier to predict where the next strike will be.

2. Find your spot and make sure it's a safe place. You don't want to run the risk of getting struck.

3. Mount your camera on a tripod and attach the cable release. Make sure your tripod is on level ground and not at risk for movement.

4. Turn off auto focus. Set your camera to infinity or manually focus it.

5. Set your camera to the "bulb" setting so you can get a long exposure.

6. Choose your F/Stop. This could be tricky, and you may have to try a few different ones to get the right setting. F/8 will allow you to do longer exposures.

7. Press down the cable release and hold it until the lightning appears. Depending on the surrounding lights, you could keep your shutter open up to 5 minutes.

Tips & Warnings

• For best results, shoot lightning at night in a remote area away from city lights.

• You can either close the shutter after the strike or leave it open to capture multiple strikes in the same frame. This technique could also be used when shooting fireworks.

• Do not risk getting struck. Try to find the safest place possible.