Lightning Photographs Indonesia

Prologue

My interest in lightning and storms stems from an early age and as far as I can remember I always used to run outside to feel the warmth and smell of the first raindrops and that clean, sharp, electric ozone smell after lightning strikes.

After a hiatus of several decades and with the advent of digital cameras and image processing systems I finally decided to relive my childhood fascination in storms and especially lightning in trying to capture the raw, visceral power and beauty that is in a lightning strike.

Lightning normally triggers a primeval fear and floods the onlooker with an addictive adrenaline rush that words cannot describe and can only be lived, and is somewhat unusual to see someone busy clicking away when the first reaction is to run indoors and shut the doors, windows and draw the curtains.

I must admit that feeling to hide or go indoors is ever prevalent and overpowering but the childhood fascination almost always overwhelms the primordial fear and the clicking resumes.

I have added an expanding gallery of what I see as my better results with a couple of "good" images. This is an evolving work in progress and as we draw into the a new wet and stormy 2013 season we should hopefully add somemore interesting images.


Results

My best shot to date - a single exposure not composite

Other interesting shots of varying shapes and distances

These are some first trials into daytime lightning strikes - not as spectacular as the night shots but much more difficult

A group of shots taken during a week of especially strong activity

This last group are not as visually striking as the above ones but Im still happy with them

The hunt continues and hopefully with better technique and equipment will provide better results this new season. As anyone that has tried to take lightning shots will know this compilation is a result of more than 1000 images ... only financially possible with digital photography.

More photographs from my archives relocated after looking through my hard drives.

Equipment

I use a Pentax K7 with 16-45 F4 lens and with a recent 17-70 F4 addition. I have also used a 50-135 DA* but find it not flexible enough. I have a simple no-name quite sturdy tripod with camera settings of Manual, Infinity focus, F5.6-9, ISO100 and exposure time of 15-30 seconds depending on day or night. For day need a ND filter of 6+ stops to get the desired slow speed.