I figure that my chances of ever getting to photograph a tornado are probably slim and none.  Any time that I ever bring that up my wife always shoots me a look that worries me about taking pictures in a light mist let alone. :)  So I guess I am taking the next best thing in lightning.

There are a few things that you have to have to get a decent lightning shot.  The first is patience.  I have gone out about three to four times this spring and this is the first time that I have gotten anything worthy of putting on here to call a “lightning shot.”  I am in no way saying that these are great, but in my journey of learning about getting better shots of lightning these are pretty good for me.  I am not sure why I am fascinated with trying to shoot lightning.  I thought for a while that after I got a couple of shots that I would be happy and it would go away.  But that hasn’t happened yet.  🙂

A few things for the gear-heads out there that might want to know…

• Canon 5D Mark 2
• 16-35 f2.8 L and 24-70 f2.8 L
• Manfrotto Tripod
• Pocketwizard with Cable Release

My reason for including these first couple of shots is to show you a couple of things.  The first one is to see how dark the sky was without the lighting.  The second is to show you what a lot of your frames are going to look like if you don’t have lightning that is at least once every ten seconds.

Ok.  Now a couple of things that you want to consider before starting.  The ISO was set to 200.  I shot these between f8 and f16.  The last part was the shutter speed.  I went from 20 seconds all the way up to 30 seconds when the storms were not as strong.

This was my favorite shot of the night.  I knew as soon as the lightning strike happened that it was going to be really good.

This was my last shot of the night.  The entire sky lit up and the thunder was right on top of me.  Things were getting a little crazy at that point.  So I packed up and went inside to check out the shots…

I think I am going to check out this workshop for next year…Storm Chasing Tour.  My guess will be that if I attend this that I will need a good funeral home or divorce lawyer. 🙂