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FramedByNature — Lightning Photography Tutorial
Published: 2012-06-08 19:20:41 +0000 UTC; Views: 12056; Favourites: 298; Downloads: 156
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Description
For more photography, visit Framed By Nature .NETCapturing lightning can seem like a daunting task, but if you know the basics, it's really quite simple! Tried to make this tutorial as comprehensive as possible to answer any questions and issues that may arise when attempting to shoot lightning. If you have any additional questions, feel free to comment
Don't be discouraged if you don't have a DSLR and a tripod! I took the 3 shots below with my point-and-shoot.
The only lightning-related thing this really doesn't cover is stacking, which I'll write a separate tutorial for. Figured I'd leave it out of this one since this focuses more on shooting than processing
Happy shooting!
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Comments: 99
Thanks! Hope it helps
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This will be helpful once I head off on my travelling next week
Thanks a bunch!
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Awesome, good luck with your travels!
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awesome, thank you for doing this.
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Nice pointers! You have really developed (pun intended) as a photographer. It has been fun following you! Cheers!
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Haha very nice pun 
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Great tutorial Evan 
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Thanks Greg! I hope so
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Nice! The point-n-shoot pics are pretty awesome, not sure if I'd have the patience for that.
Then of course there's always lightning triggers for those who have the $
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It sort of sucked, but I have to thank those days for teaching me the greatest lesson of photography: patience.
Should have mentioned lightning triggers, but I figured this would be more for those just getting into lightning photography 
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Very true indeed! Say, quick question, what lenses do you recommend for stormchasing photography? I shoot with Canon and my Tamron 18-200 3.5 really isn't that great. On a storm yesterday I was forced to crank the ISO up to 400 to get anything, so I have this unfortunately terrible grain on what would otherwise be an awesome funnel shot. Because of that I was thinking maybe I need something better in low light (2.8 aperture?) and maybe wider view as well?
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I use my Tamron 10-24mm for wide angle stuff, though it's gotten soft at the corners when wide open. My 18-135mm kit does pretty well but it won't solve any low light problems. Really the only way to fix that would be to buy a fast prime (I have a 50mm f/1.4) or noise reduction software. Noise shouldn't be too bad at ISO 400 really, I shoot at that quite often when doing macros. A wider field of view helps gather more light as well.
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DUde. THIS WAS EPIC. EPICCCCCCCCCCCC.
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Haha I hope it was useful!
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We shall find out come the monsoon season! ^_^
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Awesome! Glad to hear my friend
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it's very kind of you to share your insights in such a comprehensive, fully-fledged (and visually appealing) way.
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wow, thanks so much! This helped a lot.
I thought it was ironic you shot your first photos with a point and shoot, I had been wanting to do that SO bad. I was walking home one day when a thunderstorm actually started, and my point and shoot camera got all wet, money down the drain after I had it for almost 3 months 
love the tutorial and photos, it was super helpful.
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No problem!
Aww no
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iv never had my own point and shoot camera, so I got one but it broke after 1 week, something was wrong with it (not my fault) so I got a refund, then I got a nikon coolpix and just loved it, now it's ruined. stuff like that just saps the joy out of even doing photography for me , I can't control where it rains though! haha. We got like 5 inches of rain that day, it was a huge downpour.
what do you do to protect your cameras from the rain? or your lenses?
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I really hadn't been protecting them until moisture screwed up the LCD on my Canon XSi. From now on I'm going to drape a cloth or small towel over my camera if it's shooting during light rain, and keep a cloth on hand to wipe the lens clean
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oh, okay! good idea, thanks for the tip.
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I love it!! Can I use it on my blog? I'll give you credit.
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Absolutely! You can link back either to this, or the Tutorials page on my site [link]
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Awesome! Do you by chance have just a plain text version? Something I can copy and paste into my blog without images?
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Didn't have one, wrote one up just for you
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You are the BEST!! I can't wait to post this today!
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Haha well thanks for sharing
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Awesome, thanks for sharing
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xD Looks great! If I do go out in the field, I'm definitely keeping this tutorial in mind. *I'm getting that radar app for my iPhone D|*
Unfortunately the area I'm in is the piney woods in Texas, so it's flat and trees, trees everywhere.
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I think both apps cost about $10, but they're worth it. I'm sure there are some free ones too, though they probably don't offer as many radar types
Trees are a lightning photographer's worst enemy, lol. They cover the sky and don't provide safe protection
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TREES ARE AWESOME. o;
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Trees are awesome for infrared photography
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I'll have to see to it, but I'm having so mcuh trouble getting a job and money is tight so... yeah D|
Trees are evil. D:< They always get in the way.
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