Mini 3 Lightning Strikes - Again and Again

[rickmurray1989]

In Hendersonville, Tennessee, we have been experiencing thunderstorms on almost a daily basis for the past few weeks. Rather than moan about the weather, I have been using the opportunity to hone my lightning imaging skills. Here are two of my favorites from yesterday - Mini 3 Pro.

 

[GFields]

Wow! Awesome photos!

 

[rickmurray1989]

Wow! Awesome photos!

Thanks. I am getting a lot of opportunities to improve my skills of late...

 

[truckdude]

Absolutely incredible

 

[rickmurray1989]

Absolutely incredible

Thanks!

 

[Aquaelie]

Amazing photos. I love the deep purple of the lighting discharge in the cloud. Did you use editing from RAW to get this color and quality or is this the image straight from the camera? Could you please share the camera settings are are using to get this kind of quality? Thanks!

 

[rickmurray1989]

Amazing photos. I love the deep purple of the lighting discharge in the cloud. Did you use editing from RAW to get this color and quality or is this the image straight from the camera? Could you please share the camera settings are are using to get this kind of quality? Thanks!

I captured all of the images in 4K 60p video, and then I extracted the stills in iMovie. Once I had the stills, I imported them into Lightroom and normalized the color and contrast. After I finished, I ran the images through Topaz Denoise AI to clean up the digital noise - I don't like grainy images. BTW, the purple in the clouds from the lightning discharge is real... in fact, I was astonished by it.

 

[projectilesam]

In Hendersonville, Tennessee, we have been experiencing thunderstorms on almost a daily basis for the past few weeks. Rather than moan about the weather, I have been using the opportunity to hone my lightning imaging skills. Here are two of my favorites from yesterday - Mini 3 Pro.View attachment 165973View attachment 165974

looks unreal and totally amazing. wow. second one seems like a fight between 2 gods. keep up the work

 

[rickmurray1989]

looks unreal and totally amazing. wow. second one seems like a fight between 2 gods. keep up the work

Thanks... our storms of late have looked unreal, too...

 

[funflyer]

In Hendersonville, Tennessee, we have been experiencing thunderstorms on almost a daily basis for the past few weeks. Rather than moan about the weather, I have been using the opportunity to hone my lightning imaging skills. Here are two of my favorites from yesterday - Mini 3 Pro.View attachment 165973View attachment 165974

Very cool. Thanks for explaining how you accomplished this. Pretty quiet weather wise in Wisconsin. Can’t wait to give it a try.

 

[Dale D]

In Hendersonville, Tennessee, we have been experiencing thunderstorms on almost a daily basis for the past few weeks. Rather than moan about the weather, I have been using the opportunity to hone my lightning imaging skills. Here are two of my favorites from yesterday - Mini 3 Pro.View attachment 165973View attachment 165974

Rick
Those are fabulous shots with great processing. Congratulations of these great shots.

I'd like to understand just a little bit more about how I could do this. Do you just put the drone up (?100 feet?) and let
is hold there on video/auto settings and wait for the lightning strikes? Tell me the settings too-e.g.: ISO, shutter, etc.We have some rip roaring lighting strikes here too?

Dale
Miami

 

[badshah]

Brilliant, almost to the point that they look doctored! And I say that as a compliment. Good job!

 

[BillPod]

Incredible! Keep up the great pics!

 

[Talldiver]

Fabulous. How long did you record before getting a lightning strike?

 

[rickmurray1989]

Very cool. Thanks for explaining how you accomplished this. Pretty quiet weather wise in Wisconsin. Can’t wait to give it a try.

Let me know if I can help.

 

[rickmurray1989]

Fabulous. How long did you record before getting a lightning strike?

I developed a technique that has worked for me. I started recording, and the first strike took about 2 minutes before i got it. A few seconds after the flash ended, I stopped the video, and immediately restarted it, thinking that it would give me a quick way of finding it in iMovie. I did it for all of the subsequent strikes, and man, did it ever save me time.

 

[rickmurray1989]

Brilliant, almost to the point that they look doctored! And I say that as a compliment. Good job!

Taken as a compliment. I have been a professional photographer for decades, so I have a fair amount of post-processing experience to achieve realistic results. They are fun captures, though, I must admit.

 

[GaryMavic3Pro]

I captured all of the images in 4K 60p video, and then I extracted the stills in iMovie. Once I had the stills, I imported them into Lightroom and normalized the color and contrast. After I finished, I ran the images through Topaz Denoise AI to clean up the digital noise - I don't like grainy images. BTW, the purple in the clouds from the lightning discharge is real... in fact, I was astonished by it.

Fabulous inspiring images. And thanks for technical information. I have the same tools so I need to do storm chasing.

- Gary

 

[PAW]

I developed a technique that has worked for me. I started recording, and the first strike took about 2 minutes before i got it. A few seconds after the flash ended, I stopped the video, and immediately restarted it, thinking that it would give me a quick way of finding it in iMovie. I did it for all of the subsequent strikes, and man, did it ever save me time.

Thanks, good idea, Would have saved me a bunch of time searching my 20 min video

 

[mavic_minis_fly_away]

Any chance you could post the original frame of the 2nd photo? Thanks.