After 4 days of multiple T-Storms every day and a whole week of more storms coming, can anyone suggest good settings for attempting to photograph lighting with the Rebel (or any other DSLR I suppose.) Unfortunately I only have the kit lens still, but what other lenses would be good for such photography also?
The kit lens actually will do just fine. Set for moderately wide angle if the lightning is close, and around f/5.6 to f/8. Use a tripod, and use a remote if you have one.
I usually use "bulb" and wait for the initial flash, then trigger the shutter quickly.
My best catches still don't hold up to some of what's been posted here before. I'm hoping ot get some good stuff this summer.
30 seconds worked great for me. Probably want to set the exposure compensation to -1.0 or so. I think I shot manual at f/9. It's important to stop down with the kit lens.
The kit lens actually will do just fine. Set for moderately wide angle if the lightning is close, and around f/5.6 to f/8. Use a tripod, and use a remote if you have one.
I usually use "bulb" and wait for the initial flash, then trigger the shutter quickly.
My best catches still don't hold up to some of what's been posted here before. I'm hoping ot get some good stuff this summer.
You mean you leave the shutter open until the flash then you release it? I don't have a remote, so I just use the 30 second max and use the self-timer mode.
Have you gotten good night shots with longer exposures? Does noise start to creep in after 30 seconds?
I used the shutter priority set to 15 seconds with ISO 100. I started at ISO 200 but changed that down to 100 after only a few shots. After the 15 seconds was up, I immediately fired again. I used my kit lens, the 28-90mm, set at 28mm. The hardest part for me was focusing. I basically manually focused on something I thought was equally as far away as the lightning and then hoped for the best. I got lucky.
The biggest thing is patience. Pick an active spot and stay there. If you can get yourself up on a hill, even better. I live on a large hill overlooking a valley that leads down to a lake so I see south, west and north. It's really nice because I can stand out under the patio, stay dry (usually), and see a lot. The hill in the lightning shots I took is about a 1/2 mile away. The lightning seemed to shoot behind it, so I'm guessing it was about a mile or two away. I took about 150 shots and wound up with the 7 that are on my site.
Here in NY we've been getting the IA, IL, and MI storms as well. We had quite a storm last night; we were in the tornado watch box. They had spotted rotation about 30 miles northwest of here, but it continued east. There was a lot of lightning up that way, but not many bolts. Most of the lightning was up above the (low) clouds so all I saw was large flashes. I think I may have 2-3 shots but I haven't viewed them on the computer yet.
Ron, keep trying! Don't get frustrated. It's mostly luck. If you can pick the right direction to face, then you've got it made. Don't move directions frequently because you'll almost always miss the shot!
Good luck and I hope to see some shots from you and the rest. Just be careful!
