 BetterPhoto Member |
How to shoot Lightening On several occasions, I have attempted to 'expand my horizons' by shooting a lightening storm at night (and very unsuccesfully). I have the Nikon N90s with a 24-120mm and a 20-300mm zoom lens.I have tried using both. I set the camera to infinity and use the bulb setting but I just cannot get the camera to focus, should I be on manual focus or automatic? Is there some *magic* to getting this technique right?Is there a better lens to use and what's the fastest film recommended for this type of shot. What should I do to try this again? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Fiona
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Ken Pang |
Hi Fiona, Try two things: A wider field of view, say 50mm, and a smaller aperture, say f/16. This gives you a couple advantages: 1) More chance of catching a lightning strike, if you're wathcing more of the sky 2) An opportunity to hold the shutter open longer, since a smaller aperture means a longer time to correct exposure 3) sharper focus, because at 50mm and f/16, everything beyond 4m is "acceptably sharp" according to the depth of field calculator. Of course, if lighting strikes within 4m of you, you got bigger problems than unsharp focus. Remember to use a tripod, use mirror lock up if you can, and use a remote to trigger the camera, so you don't send it shaking when you hit the shutter trigger.
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