North Captiva Lightning

This Fourth of July found me on North Captiva Island again. It was my third visit to this secluded private island getaway. I had hoped that there would be professional fireworks close enough to see--and photograph--either over the island or the ocean. While the conventional fireworks never materialized, those from God provided plenty to shoot. Within a hour of sundown, a thunderstorm crossed out of the Everglades out and over the Gulf of Mexico.

Photographing lightning during the day is a matter of skill, reflexes, and largely luck. Using a few easy techniques for night photography elinimates a lot of the need for luck, leaving only a little skill.
To take great night lighting photos, you'll need the following:

1. A good thunderstorm (Hey, a little luck will always be needed)
2. A tripod
3. A shutter release cable
4. A DSLR/SLR with a "bulb" shutter speed setting.

By using the bulb setting and the right combination of aperture and focal length, you can set up a reasonably well focused composition where varied distances of lighting strikes will be reasonable sharp. If you really want to get technical when selecting a focal length, spend some time studying "hyperfocal distance". Unfortunately, reading the settings on the barrel of  a lens and making fine adjustments in the dark is not easy, if not impossible. For me, a little dead reckoning, some trail and error, and a little dumb luck paid off.

My greatest challenge in capturing this image was the full moon over my left shoulder. With a fairly long time between strikes as the storm dissipated out over the ocean, my shutter was open for a pretty long time.This particular shot was 65 seconds at f5. While the distance of the lightning called for a fairly wide open apeture, the moonlight on the clouds caused a very overexposed image. Again, a bit of trail and error fixed the problem. And as an added bonus, the moonlight helped make a nice composition out of the foliage near the beach in the foreground.

This technique works best with minimal light polution, so the shooting location on an isolated island was ideal. If all else fails, it's an excellent excuse to seek a secluded location while waiting for the right thunderstorm to come your way.