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Lightning is coming : } Storms are Brewing !

Phantomrain.org

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We have been capturing Lightning for about 5 years now starting with the Phantom 4 ,
its a Mystery, a Puzzle and always the Adventure and have more fun doing that , than anything else with the drone .

Once you capture a nice picture of Lighting is easy to get hooked , its like catching fish , but I have learned some things along the Way.

Start by trying to Capture the Lighting at night , Just Keep your drone on video and Auto Setting.
That old saying that Lighting does not strike twice does not apply to the Capture of Lightning with your drone.

80% of the Lighting your going to miss ,, unless you have more than 1 Drone in the Air , but the 20 % you do capture will be worth it.

Take a look at the what was captured with just the Auto Settings at night,

C0003.00_07_41_17.Still012-1.jpg C0003.00_07_41_18.Still013-1.jpgC0003.00_07_46_11.Still015-1.jpgC0003.00_07_46_17.Still016-1.jpgC0003.00_07_41_16.Still011-1.jpgC0003.00_07_41_13.Still009-1.jpg

Keep the drone still once you know the Direction of the Lightning .
Try to Frame the Picture with a building where you want the Lightning to Strike to get something nicer than just the sky. The Background is the Most Important in the Shot
When you first start out your going to be panning trying to chase the Lightning , Dont do it , Wait for the Fish to come to you.

Get up in the Air before the Strong winds come as its much easier to Negotiate the drone Swaying in the Wind in the sky than close to the ground.

Her is a good example :


During the Storm , you may want to try to Take a Pano in hopes of just getting lucky , with a capture here or there.


One of my most rewarding Pictures is that of a Tornado trying to Form at 3am when we lost Electricity so it was pitch black but I had a Generator to work with
and captured this : dfgsxfgdfg-1.jpg2 pics tornado-1.jpg

Unfortunately you wont really know what you captured on your Footage until you run thru it frame by frame as it happens so fast.
One other thing to note: No matter how hard it raining , the Rain rarely shows up on the Pictures , so they tend to be very clean.

As you learn to fly in the Rain, you learn a lot of tricks with your camera , to capture the sky without drops on the lens.

Here is some unusual circle of Lighting captured during the day , which could not be seen by the Human Eye at that time , It was a Shock.

C0003.00_07_13_11.Still002-1.jpg

As much as I enjoy the Sunset Pictures , nothing compares to the Rush of the Storms and what they may bring.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic 3 in the Rain and Capture the Lightning

2021-12-10_15h33_20.png
 
Pretty rare that I get lightning in Arizona that does not also have large amounts of dust so I probably won't be doing this, but I am jealous of the wonderful shots!
 
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Very cool! Somewhat similar to recording fireworks with the drone at night, except for the rain, hail, and wind part!
 
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We have been capturing Lightning for about 5 years now starting with the Phantom 4 ,
its a Mystery, a Puzzle and always the Adventure and have more fun doing that , than anything else with the drone .

Once you capture a nice picture of Lighting is easy to get hooked , its like catching fish , but I have learned some things along the Way.

Start by trying to Capture the Lighting at night , Just Keep your drone on video and Auto Setting.
That old saying that Lighting does not strike twice does not apply to the Capture of Lightning with your drone.

80% of the Lighting your going to miss ,, unless you have more than 1 Drone in the Air , but the 20 % you do capture will be worth it.

Take a look at the what was captured with just the Auto Settings at night,

View attachment 147882 View attachment 147883View attachment 147884View attachment 147885View attachment 147887View attachment 147888

Keep the drone still once you know the Direction of the Lightning .
Try to Frame the Picture with a building where you want the Lightning to Strike to get something nicer than just the sky. The Background is the Most Important in the Shot
When you first start out your going to be panning trying to chase the Lightning , Dont do it , Wait for the Fish to come to you.

Get up in the Air before the Strong winds come as its much easier to Negotiate the drone Swaying in the Wind in the sky than close to the ground.

Her is a good example :


During the Storm , you may want to try to Take a Pano in hopes of just getting lucky , with a capture here or there.


One of my most rewarding Pictures is that of a Tornado trying to Form at 3am when we lost Electricity so it was pitch black but I had a Generator to work with
and captured this : View attachment 147890View attachment 147889

Unfortunately you wont really know what you captured on your Footage until you run thru it frame by frame as it happens so fast.
One other thing to note: No matter how hard it raining , the Rain rarely shows up on the Pictures , so they tend to be very clean.

As you learn to fly in the Rain, you learn a lot of tricks with your camera , to capture the sky without drops on the lens.

Here is some unusual circle of Lighting captured during the day , which could not be seen by the Human Eye at that time , It was a Shock.

View attachment 147891

As much as I enjoy the Sunset Pictures , nothing compares to the Rush of the Storms and what they may bring.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic 3 in the Rain and Capture the Lightning

View attachment 147893
I think you might be the only person around who actually has the courage (?cajones) to do this! Congratulations for great images and and showing us what can be done. For me, I'll take a pass.

Dale
Miami
 
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We have been capturing Lightning for about 5 years now starting with the Phantom 4 ,
its a Mystery, a Puzzle and always the Adventure and have more fun doing that , than anything else with the drone .

Once you capture a nice picture of Lighting is easy to get hooked , its like catching fish , but I have learned some things along the Way.

Start by trying to Capture the Lighting at night , Just Keep your drone on video and Auto Setting.
That old saying that Lighting does not strike twice does not apply to the Capture of Lightning with your drone.

80% of the Lighting your going to miss ,, unless you have more than 1 Drone in the Air , but the 20 % you do capture will be worth it.

Take a look at the what was captured with just the Auto Settings at night,

View attachment 147882 View attachment 147883View attachment 147884View attachment 147885View attachment 147887View attachment 147888

Keep the drone still once you know the Direction of the Lightning .
Try to Frame the Picture with a building where you want the Lightning to Strike to get something nicer than just the sky. The Background is the Most Important in the Shot
When you first start out your going to be panning trying to chase the Lightning , Dont do it , Wait for the Fish to come to you.

Get up in the Air before the Strong winds come as its much easier to Negotiate the drone Swaying in the Wind in the sky than close to the ground.

Her is a good example :


During the Storm , you may want to try to Take a Pano in hopes of just getting lucky , with a capture here or there.


One of my most rewarding Pictures is that of a Tornado trying to Form at 3am when we lost Electricity so it was pitch black but I had a Generator to work with
and captured this : View attachment 147890View attachment 147889

Unfortunately you wont really know what you captured on your Footage until you run thru it frame by frame as it happens so fast.
One other thing to note: No matter how hard it raining , the Rain rarely shows up on the Pictures , so they tend to be very clean.

As you learn to fly in the Rain, you learn a lot of tricks with your camera , to capture the sky without drops on the lens.

Here is some unusual circle of Lighting captured during the day , which could not be seen by the Human Eye at that time , It was a Shock.

View attachment 147891

As much as I enjoy the Sunset Pictures , nothing compares to the Rush of the Storms and what they may bring.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic 3 in the Rain and Capture the Lightning

View attachment 147893
 
Didn't read all the comments so forgive me if this has been asked. If you end up using frames from a 4K or higher video, I assume they will look really good. Is there any sense in burst photo shooting, or is that putting too much pressure on and reducing the window of opportunity 🤔 - see there I go, answering my own questions again. I'll just go now. 😔

But thanks for the lightning primer!
 
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Didn't read all the comments so forgive me if this has been asked. If you end up using frames from a 4K or higher video, I assume they will look really good. Is there any sense in burst photo shooting, or is that putting too much pressure on and reducing the window of opportunity 🤔 - see there I go, answering my own questions again. I'll just go now. 😔

But thanks for the lightning primer!
So, this is great question. Burst Photo shooting is awesome if your in the right place at the right time. By the time you burst you may have missed every flash of lightning , where as if you have the video with the 4K frames you guarantee the shots . This also goes with the Pano, Lots of decisions to make when the adventure begins. Do you capture the little fishies or go for the Marlin .

Keep in mind you have some incredible skies with storms with or without the lighting but you have to be able to Negotiate the Rain. There was some lighting happening in the clouds but the Pano missed every time .

Air 2S Wet Suit New Red- 3 (1 of 1)-35.jpg
Same with this shot : Missed the Lightning but man if i could have gotten it , Award winning picture maybe , lol
DJI_0475.00_05_47_12.Still006-1.jpg


Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain and Capture the Lightning
 
We have been capturing Lightning for about 5 years now starting with the Phantom 4 ,
its a Mystery, a Puzzle and always the Adventure and have more fun doing that , than anything else with the drone .

Once you capture a nice picture of Lighting is easy to get hooked , its like catching fish , but I have learned some things along the Way.

Start by trying to Capture the Lighting at night , Just Keep your drone on video and Auto Setting.
That old saying that Lighting does not strike twice does not apply to the Capture of Lightning with your drone.

80% of the Lighting your going to miss ,, unless you have more than 1 Drone in the Air , but the 20 % you do capture will be worth it.

Take a look at the what was captured with just the Auto Settings at night,

View attachment 147882 View attachment 147883View attachment 147884View attachment 147885View attachment 147887View attachment 147888

Keep the drone still once you know the Direction of the Lightning .
Try to Frame the Picture with a building where you want the Lightning to Strike to get something nicer than just the sky. The Background is the Most Important in the Shot
When you first start out your going to be panning trying to chase the Lightning , Dont do it , Wait for the Fish to come to you.

Get up in the Air before the Strong winds come as its much easier to Negotiate the drone Swaying in the Wind in the sky than close to the ground.

Her is a good example :


During the Storm , you may want to try to Take a Pano in hopes of just getting lucky , with a capture here or there.


One of my most rewarding Pictures is that of a Tornado trying to Form at 3am when we lost Electricity so it was pitch black but I had a Generator to work with
and captured this : View attachment 147890View attachment 147889

Unfortunately you wont really know what you captured on your Footage until you run thru it frame by frame as it happens so fast.
One other thing to note: No matter how hard it raining , the Rain rarely shows up on the Pictures , so they tend to be very clean.

As you learn to fly in the Rain, you learn a lot of tricks with your camera , to capture the sky without drops on the lens.

Here is some unusual circle of Lighting captured during the day , which could not be seen by the Human Eye at that time , It was a Shock.

View attachment 147891

As much as I enjoy the Sunset Pictures , nothing compares to the Rush of the Storms and what they may bring.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic 3 in the Rain and Capture the Lightning

View attachment 147893
Very interesting and informative. I think I’ll be on the lookout for an opportunity to try this.
 
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What level of winds can you safely fly in?
Winds that you can fly at in th sky are higher than take off winds. Sky winds 35 mph is safe
Take off winds 20 mph is doable but recommend you find a break wall to get up in the Air at that point
by using a tree, your car or building , be ready for the Rath.

This is what most of your flights will end up looking like when you get up to search for Lightning " Fishing

 
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Pretty rare that I get lightning in Arizona that does not also have large amounts of dust so I probably won't be doing this, but I am jealous of the wonderful shots!
I think you might be the only person around who actually has the courage (?cajones) to do this! Congratulations for great images and and showing us what can be done. For me, I'll take a pass.

Dale
Miami
Yes, location is everything. I have been to Arizona and frequent thunderstorms might be a blessing.

I live on the upper Texas coast and in the summer we might get thunderstorms every day for several days. They don’t usually blanket the area so you can see some crazy looking storms but be 10-15 miles away.

Dale, if you are in Miami I would think that you have similar weather with a lot of thunderstorms caused by the sea breeze but can view them from a good distance. I would want to fly in one but I might have to break out the drone when the storms start cranking up in a couple of weeks.
 
We have been capturing Lightning for about 5 years now starting with the Phantom 4 ,
its a Mystery, a Puzzle and always the Adventure and have more fun doing that , than anything else with the drone .

Once you capture a nice picture of Lighting is easy to get hooked , its like catching fish , but I have learned some things along the Way.

Start by trying to Capture the Lighting at night , Just Keep your drone on video and Auto Setting.
That old saying that Lighting does not strike twice does not apply to the Capture of Lightning with your drone.

80% of the Lighting your going to miss ,, unless you have more than 1 Drone in the Air , but the 20 % you do capture will be worth it.

Take a look at the what was captured with just the Auto Settings at night,

View attachment 147882 View attachment 147883View attachment 147884View attachment 147885View attachment 147887View attachment 147888

Keep the drone still once you know the Direction of the Lightning .
Try to Frame the Picture with a building where you want the Lightning to Strike to get something nicer than just the sky. The Background is the Most Important in the Shot
When you first start out your going to be panning trying to chase the Lightning , Dont do it , Wait for the Fish to come to you.

Get up in the Air before the Strong winds come as its much easier to Negotiate the drone Swaying in the Wind in the sky than close to the ground.

Her is a good example :


During the Storm , you may want to try to Take a Pano in hopes of just getting lucky , with a capture here or there.


One of my most rewarding Pictures is that of a Tornado trying to Form at 3am when we lost Electricity so it was pitch black but I had a Generator to work with
and captured this : View attachment 147890View attachment 147889

Unfortunately you wont really know what you captured on your Footage until you run thru it frame by frame as it happens so fast.
One other thing to note: No matter how hard it raining , the Rain rarely shows up on the Pictures , so they tend to be very clean.

As you learn to fly in the Rain, you learn a lot of tricks with your camera , to capture the sky without drops on the lens.

Here is some unusual circle of Lighting captured during the day , which could not be seen by the Human Eye at that time , It was a Shock.

View attachment 147891

As much as I enjoy the Sunset Pictures , nothing compares to the Rush of the Storms and what they may bring.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic 3 in the Rain and Capture the Lightning

View attachment 147893
AWESOME!
 
I was expecting a Back to the future moment where Doc gets hit by lightening in the car. GREAT SCOTT!
Thanks for sharing. Thumbswayup
 
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