I spent an hour or so last night trying to grab that perfect picture of the approaching storm.
It was quite a site to see the clouds rolling in and the electrical storm happening only a few miles away.
While I didn’t get that “perfect shot” I did get a number of photos I liked a lot.
And I learned a few things along the way as well…
- Luck seems to have a lot to do with it
- Be patient – five minutes with your camera isn’t going to get you the best shot ever — unless you really nail #1
- Stay put – I had a tendency to move my camera around (rotating it on the tripod), depending on where the action was taking place, but as soon as I did, I’d miss an amazing shot with even more lightning in the area I was just pointing.
- Find a dark area to shoot from – get away from city lights as much as possible. I kept having problems with my photos being too bright, thanks to the local street lights. Anytime I left my shutter open for more than 2 seconds, the street lights would often distort the lighting and color.
- Be willing to make adjustments – no matter how patient you are, you may still need to make adjustments to your shutter speed, your angles, your location or any other number of things. Play with it all and…
- Have fun – if you get to stressed, you won’t enjoy it — no matter what photos you end up with. Had I been too stressed about getting that perfect lightning shot, I might have missed grabbing some fun shots with cars driving by.
So there you have it — my pointers and lessons from the storm.
You can view some of the photos below, or view all of them on Flickr.
