Elusive Light

Last week I wrote about capturing electric lights at night and some effects you can do in camera. But what about elusive light? What is elusive light? I covered some elusive light when I wrote about long exposure times and capturing the light that is there but we can barely perceive. What about very fast, very bright flashes of light? You have seen them. But have you captured them? Lightning can most certainly be elusive!

Take a look at the first bolt of lightning I captured this past Saturday and you can see that it is trying to hide behind a tree!

With a little patience and a good view of the sky, I caught more. Click the link and see how and what was caught.

I have been speaking with a photography enthusiast via E-mail for the last couple of weeks about photographing flowers and lightning and all kinds of things. This gentleman lives in Texas and is a good photographer. He has an advantage over me when it comes to shooting lightning, location. When shooting lightning you need a good clear view of the sky and in Texas the hills are a bit lower and the trees a little smaller. That helps a lot!

As you could see in the first shot, the thunder storm was on the horizon. I was out on one of the highest hills in our county in a church parking lot and the ground slopped off severely in front of me. Still the trees were tall enough to interfere with my view of the sky. To get that shot I set the camera on a tripod and set to Shutter Priority at f/3.5 on my 18-105 Nikkor (set at 18mm & ISO 100) and just started banging out 8 second exposures hopping the lightning would strike while the shutter was open.

Soon the storm started moving to camera right (east) and I had to move the camera. I tried 30, 20, 15 and 10 second exposures but there either came out to bright form the flash of lightning or too dark from nothing striking while the shutter was open. Frustrated I aimed the camera a little higher in the sky and with the settings exactly the same. I hit the shutter release and BANG! Almost at the same time that I pressed the button this flashed across the sky.

That was the best shot of the night. Had I been in Texas, I would have found a nice hill overlooking part of the local city, I would have all my rain gear with me, a nice 10-20mm wide angle lens and a big distant north western sky to shoot at. Set the camera for some good 30 second exposures and start praying for a wonderful, and consistent lightning show and then just start shooting, Who knows why I might capture!

Until I find the perfect spot, you go out and give it a try and let me know where to see your lightning photos!

Until then, Happy shooting!