Tonight as I was leaving J.O.B. 2.5 I noticed a bit of lightning in the distance. Looked pretty solid so I figured hey, I’ll go perch myself up on a hill off the AH and see what I can grab.
Now yesterday, Sunday, my friend Shauna and I blew through a pile of gasoline trying to get out front of a storm, um, front, in order to try and get some shots without getting poured on. We were moderately successful. Although being the bad teacher that I am, she misunderstood what I was saying when explaining how to set up her camera to take shots. Of course I was busy shooting and not really paying attention. To me it sounded like she was setting things up good, but alas, I should have checked because she ended up with nothing. Though really neither did I. I ended up with this being my best shot;
Lightning on the Back Road.
Not terrible, and with some work I could get rid of the drop smudge in the bottom right and maybe make it somewhat interesting. Really, I think the best thing I may have come away with yesterday was sweet timelapse stuff. If it’s any good I’ll post it later, haven’t look at it yet.
But tonight the lightning seemed pretty good and there was no rain going on because the main storm was a fair ways away yet.
So off I went. This is one reason why I ALWAYS try to take my camera with me everywhere. Since I had it with me, I didn’t have to waste time going home to get it first. Thank GOD! Because to get where I wanted to go I had to journey 25% the way around the entire bloody city just to get the other side of the Henday and to the hills I actually wanted. Sure, I could pulled over and just run across, but that could cost me as well if I decide that a side road would lead me to a better landscape. No, I needed to have all my tools with me and that includes my car. So, around I went. As it turned out, I ended up doing all my shooting with about 50 meters of the Anthony Henday.
It started off slowly while I tried to get my settings dialed in. A good rule of thumb is to start with F11, ISO 100, and shutter speed of 30 seconds just to see what you get for landscape illumination. I just went straight to BULB which is the mode where as long as you’re holding the shutter button, your shutter is open. The idea here is that you hold the shutter open and when lightning flashes, you let go and you have your shot!
Not always though.
Lightning will not ALWAYS act as a flash bulb.
Sometimes you will need to leave your shutter open for a while after a strike to bring out the definition of your surroundings.
Eventually I started getting what I needed.
The first shot is the default out of the camera and the second with some very minor tweaking of exposure and black levels.
Not too terrible...
Hmmm
...Much better...
The second one is pretty nice and amazingly well centered. But I was sure something better was only a few moments away.
So I waited.
And I shot.
And I got a lot of shots with lightning just out of the left side of my frame.
And then after a few shots that were alright but not fantastic I got this baby!
OMG!!!
I thought, Yup, that’s pretty darn sweet! And if it was the only good shot of the night I’d have been happy.
But it wasn’t!
While I got a lot of shots with very nice strikes in them, they were typically very off centre. Maybe some cropping will make some look good but generally, those will never get used.
I decided to move a little closer to the water and try to get more of that in the shot. But as I moved I became concerned that I was missing shots.
So I parked my tripod again, re-aimed, and eventually I got this one and thought, Wow! It’s like they’re reaching for me!
They Reach!
Now I thought, YES!!! NOW we’re cooking with propane! This was soon followed up by;
Nice Marbling!
And now I felt, yeah, this was a good night.
But as I tried for a few more shots the rain began to fall. But just a little.
I then began an inner debate. Do I leave now and accept what I’ve gotten, or do I venture yet closer to the water and risk a getting very wet if the sky opens up.
I decided to wait for the sky to open up and I ventured closer to the water.
Man am I glad I did!!!
WHOOO!!!!!
And then tragedy struck! I had been shooting in BULB, at ISO 100, and a aperture of 5,6!!! The strikes had been fairly thin, not overly bright. 5.6 was working reat for me. Until;
SO BRIGHT!!!
Now, if I had shot this in .jpg, the best I could hope for in bring things back is;
Still a globby white blob at the top of the shot.
Notice the red shift as we increase contrast by shifting the blacks and midrange around? And I’ve recovered absolutely nothing in the bright range.
Fortunately, I choose to shoot everything in RAW because for me, my next shot COULD BE my greatest work of art and I want to be sure I have as much detail and ifnromation captured as possible to ensure the best possible range of editing options I can get.
While certainly in need of more work, and the removal of that water smudge, I was able to recover a lot more detail with the RAW file;
Mmmmm, flashy goodness!
While still a large glob of white at the top of my shot, it’s at least a bit smaller and I can see more of my main bolt. With everything more to the right, my final edit will probably see this as a square image. And that water smudge will be removed.
At this point, the rain was starting to really come down and the wind had picked up and things were getting COLD!!! So I tried for one more shot before running to back to my car. Didn’t get anything so I bolted. Naturally, as soon as I turned my back the whole world lit up!!!
Such is the life of the photographer.
As I drove back home there were so many more bright flashes. It pained me to know what was going on out there was not being captured by me! But I didn’t bring a rain coat. And my camera has virtually no protection from the elements. So alas, there was nothing I could do but miss literally dozens of shots.
Note to self: buy rain gear!
Tags: Edmonton Photographer,
lightning,
night
