Missouri Lightning Storm

[chardister]

I was able to get some good shots of a storm as it passed 10 miles north of my home in Joplin, MO this past week.

Iso: 100
Exp: 4”
Filter: None
Alt: 400’

All edits done in Lightroom

 

[Joely-Bird]

Good Work! These are great! And I'm super impressed with the sharpness at 4 sec exposures! I haven't managed to get many without some motion blur on much over a second.

Would love to see some of these blended together to show an epic multi-strike shot!

 

[chardister]

Thanks! I did have some motion blur at the beginning honestly. I put it in Tripod mode and was golden after that. I didn’t think it would make much difference since I was hovering in one spot but there must be some stabilizing effect with it.

I may have to do some blending now that you mention it...great idea!

 

[RayOZ]

Nice. I only have 1 lightning pic. It was actually a video I was taking, and while playing it, I saw a lightning strike and extracted that 1 frame as a picture. I have the impression, once you see a lightning and hit the photo button, the lightning would be gone.

 

[NorthEndGhost]

Man, that is fantastic! This is definitely some inspiration for me! Thanks for sharing settings.

 

[chardister]

Man, that is fantastic! This is definitely some inspiration for me! Thanks for sharing settings.

Thanks! It’s a lot of fun when the weather cooperates as good as it did!

 

[DTC709]

Epic! Love it

 

[BerndM]

 

[Huge Bama Fan]

I was able to get some good shots of a storm as it passed 10 miles north of my home in Joplin, MO this past week.

Iso: 100
Exp: 4”
Filter: None
Alt: 400’

All edits done in Lightroom

View attachment 38186View attachment 38187View attachment 38188View attachment 38189View attachment 38190View attachment 38191View attachment 38192View attachment 38193

Those are awesome

 

[Goldchucker]

Lightning is awesome. Too bad we can't tap into it.
Thank you for posting your stills. Beautiful shots.

Chuck

 

[Joely-Bird]

Lightning is awesome. Too bad we can't tap into it.
Thank you for posting your stills. Beautiful shots.

Chuck

Not yet, Chuck... Not, yet

 

[Excalibre]

i love lightning too. these are great. i may be a bit nervous of flying my MA when its happening mind. even if it were 10 miles away.

 

[chardister]

i love lightning too. these are great. i may be a bit nervous of flying my MA when its happening mind. even if it were 10 miles away.

I will say that even though it was almost completely still where I was, I had countless “connection lost” notifications. The MP was only up 400’ and out 700’ with a clear view. I think the atmospheric instability was playing a big factor even though my area seemed to be clear. I guess I tend to be a little more ballsy with my MP than I probably should!

 

[Excalibre]

I guess I tend to be a little more ballsy with my MP than I probably should!

Ha ha ha. And why not chardister, your getting good shots because of your big kahunas :-D

 

[sivart]

That's awesome. Did you just constantly shoot those long exposure shots and find the lucky ones after you were done?

 

[chardister]

That's awesome. Did you just constantly shoot those long exposure shots and find the lucky ones after you were done?

More or less that’s how it worked. I started with 8”
exposure but was finding that the lightning was frequent enough that it was washing everything out. So I dropped it to 4” and watched the sky. If nothing happened in that 4 seconds then I immediately shot another one. If something happened then I stopped to check it out before moving on. I ended up with approximately 280 shots. Of those 280, about 60 had some kind of action in them. These were just a few that really stood out to me.

 

[Joely-Bird]

More or less that’s how it worked. I started with 8”
exposure but was finding that the lightning was frequent enough that it was washing everything out. So I dropped it to 4” and watched the sky. If nothing happened in that 4 seconds then I immediately shot another one. If something happened then I stopped to check it out before moving on. I ended up with approximately 280 shots. Of those 280, about 60 had some kind of action in them. These were just a few that really stood out to me.

Timelapse!