Piper Lehman |
What the .....?! Camera and lens: Pentax zx 50 with 50mm f/1.4 lens. Tripod and locking cable release used. Turned autofocus off and focused on infinity. (If it matters at all, I was positioned about 10-15 yards from the lighted tree.) Photo #1 PHoto #2 (Same position, camera, lens, etc.) Hope someone can help. I'm thinking I should've doubled or tripled the time on the first photo -- plus covering the viewfinder. On the second, I'm thinking I don't know which way to go from here. Stop down and decrease shutter speed, or the opposite?
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Doug Vann |
The only thing that comes to mind when reading the settings you list when taking the pictures is - why would you have the aperture set at f/16? When taking in such low light you should probably have the setting at the widest opening you can (lowest f number).
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Piper Lehman |
Well, Doug, I was being a nazi and following directions from Kodak...:) I thought this was a little odd, too, but since I'm not confident in my skills, I took the Kodak pocket guide's word. I may just be misinterpreting the directions, though f/16 is definitely the ap setting they recommend. If you happen to have this book, the directions I followed are on page 107--under the 'weather' section. Fodors says use 5.6, but again, they do not say how long to leave the shutter open. In fact, Fodors' suggestion for lightning is to cover the lens with a black card between lightning strikes--getting "several strikes on one exposure." What the heck? 'Several'? Does this mean 3, 5, 10? I hate these vague technical writers! I'm going to try the lightning shoot again next time we get a storm. Will be sure to post my results. Keep your fingers crossed! Thanks for commenting.
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Piper Lehman |
I can't believe I didn't read this the first time (see paragraph 3: "...use an exposure of 5 minutes..." I think I thought this didn't apply to my shoot since it was not "totally" dark because of the supplement light from the street and the moon. Oh, well. You live; you learn. If anyone's interested, here's what the Kodak Pocket Guide says about shooting lightning. (p. 107; Weather/Lightning): Lighting shots look best when some foreground is included. They're easier to take at night because you can use longer exposures to catch several flashes on a single frame of film. For day or night shots, use medium-speed film, a tripod, and a locking cable release. Use a normal or slightly wide-angle lens so you have sufficient coverage to increase your chances of catching lightning. Point the lens at the heaviest concentration of lightning. Focus on infinity, set the aperture at f/16, and the shutter at B, and hold it open with a locking cable release. At night, use an exposure of 5 minutes. During the day, let your meter guide your exposure and keep shooting until you've caught lightning streaking across the sky when the shutter was open. Take shelter when the storm nears. (duh! If you need to be told to get in out of the rain, then you have worse problems than how to shoot a picture!) :)
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John A. Lind |
Shooting lightning is much like shooting fireworks. This is presumptive that it's being done at night or when it's very, very dark so that the lightning is much, much brighter than surrounding landscape. In this situation, aperture is based on film speed for exposure of the very short duration lighting strike. I prefer to use slow films, ISO 64 to ISO 100, with an aperture of f/5.6 and an exposure of about 5 to 10 seconds. This technique requires a willingness to burn multiple frames of film to get a decent shot, and is the method found in the "Existing Light" section of Kodak's Pocket Photoguide. You can stop down tighter, but the lighting won't be quite as bright in the image. Lighting will illuminate its immediate surroundings some (sky and ground). Extremely long exposures beyond about one to ten seconds usually create a problem with film reciprocity failure requiring even longer exposure and it often affects color balance. At what exposure time reciprocity failure occurs and the compensation required for it (time and color balancing) is very film dependent. See the data sheet for the film you use to find out what it is. Kodachrome 64 is about one second. Fuji Provia 100F is about 30 seconds. I use Kodachrome and don't worry about color balancing for it. The color shift is still subtle under these conditions, even at 5-10 seconds, and it's usually not critical for this type of photography. Most electronic shutters burn battery power at a relatively high rate while holding the shutter open. If there is a mechanical "B" or "Bulb" shutter speed setting, use it to keep from conserve your camera batteries. -- John
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