Night time thunderstorm
Uploaded: June 08, 2007
A photo of lightning hitting the mountain top right across the street from my house...
I used my Canon 10-22mm ultra-wide zoom to capture this photo: 12s f/11.0 at 10.0mm iso400. When taking pictures of lightning, I use the bulb setting for exposure and I hold the shutter open until either a) lightning occurs, or b) the shutter has been open for about 30 seconds or so. Holding the shutter open for long periods of time makes some of the pixels hot and they show up as colored dots. It's easy enough to clean up with some spot healing in Photoshop Elements (ver 3.0). This was my first time doing this type of photo and I learned a valuable lesson: at all costs, keep the front element of the lens free of rain drops at all cost! I ruined many, many spectacular shots because the raindrops show up as circles a few shades darker than the area surrounding it.
Denise Allen August 07, 2007
This is great. Thanks so much for telling how you got this. I really want to try some lightening shots.Bill K. Ko August 14, 2007
Denise:That's the whole point behind BetterPhoto.com. :) I'm glad you've learned something new. Oh, and I know this sounds dumb, but you know you need a tripod to do this, and a remote shutter release would help, too! #4648145
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