Stormy Town
Heavy lightning storm in the city of Edinburgh.
Heavy lightning storm in the city of Edinburgh.
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Jul, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
The photo was taken from my living room window. This was out of necessity and not some kind of clever plan to accommodate my inherent laziness. Sometimes a photographic opportunity presents itself and you have to just take it and make the best of the location you find yourself in.Time
It was about 1am on a Tuesday I think. I was just finishing off a show on netflix I was watching in the back room before bed when I heard the thunder outside. That in itself is a rare event in Scotland (it rains all the time but you almost never get thunder or lightning) and to give some perspective, I have experienced lightning in Scotland 3 times in the last 15 years I have lived here. So I went to the living room and looked out the window.. not only was there thunder, there was lighting, bolt after bolt after bolt. It was endless and relentless. I scrambled for my camera equipped knowing if I did not take advantage of this rare event I'd be kicking myself for years. I've always wanted to do some lightning photography but its not an easy thing to accomplish here. By the time I'd finished shooting and the lightning had stopped, it was 1:45am - I did some editing in preparation for posting the following morning and went to bed too excited to sleep anyway.Lighting
The lighting was pretty straight forward. I made sure all lights in the house remained switched off so as not to suffer any light leaks through the viewfinder. Then I just exposed for the street in the foreground and let the lightning do its own thing.Equipment
I used a Canon 5d mkii, a 24 - 105mm L lens, Giottos tripod and a wireless shutter release.Inspiration
I'm not sure I'd necessarily say I was inspired to take this photo more as driven by my own desire not to regret taking advantage of a rare opportunity. I'm sure everyone has been there at one point or another. That one photo you have in your head, that one shot that's on your photography bucket list, the one shot you've always wanted to take, but requires a specific set of conditions to be met, conditions you have no control over like photos of aurora borealis (incidentally also on my photo bucket list). So all you can do is wait and hope you have your camera handy. So when I saw lighting flashes from the living room window I immediately grabbed my gear and started setting up.Editing
Very little. I use minimal post processing in my images. I just did the standard lightroom edits of colour balance correction, easing off on the highlights, bringing shadows up a bit, a bit of clarity and sharpness and straightened the horizon (I desperately need a hot shoe spirit level).In my camera bag
It normally depends on what I am setting out to do. Sometimes specific shots require specific equipment. My base line kit that normally always sits in my bag is my canon 5d mkii, 24 - 105mm L lens, a 10 stop ND filter, a circular polariser, a wireless remote trigger and my tripod. That is my bare minimum and is what I carry when space and weight are limited. Beyond that I will often carry a 17-40mm L lens, a Zeiss 50mm 1.8 and if I'm feeling particularly manly and dont mind the additional weight, my 70 - 200mm 2.8 L.Feedback
First and most important piece of advice, go somewhere where lightning storms are more common place. Scotland is not that place. Overall guidance on lightning photography should be followed. There is a standard technique. What I did was this: Manual focus, manual colour balance, bulb mode, low iso (100 - 400) depending on what the ambient lighting is and a decent f-stop. I went with 5.6. You want to shoot for an exposure time of several seconds. 2 - 4 seconds works well. Longer works well too, in fact, the longer the better, provided your surroundings allow for it, so use settings that will give you that kind of exposure time. Why longer? because the longer your shutter is open, the higher the chance of a bolt of lightning striking while your shutter is open. The main point is to leave the shutter open long enough to catch a bolt of lightning striking. Since you cant predict when lighting will strike or where, you need to just aim your camera in an area with a nice composition and just take picture after picture and hope lighting strikes in the frame during that time. An intervalometer is handy for this. Depending on where you position yourself you can predict it, say if the entirety of the storm is off in on e direction, its a good bet thats where the lightning will be, but if you are in the middle of it like I was, then it really is a guessing game.
