Personal Collection of Lightning Storm Photography

I've spent many hours sitting near thunderstoms at the waters edge to capture some lightning bolts and flashes. These are all my own photos (some of my favorites) I've taken in several storms which massive amounts of lightning.

Technique to Capture Lightning

• Use a tripod
• Use a DLSR camera or at least one with long exposure (a few seconds)
• Burst long exposure shots works the best.

So, I've used continuous shooting for many of these, where the camera simply shoots 2 or 3 seconds endlessly in a row, where I have a good chance of capturing that perfect shot.

The image at the top, was shot very late, completely dark outside about an hour or two after sunset. It was a long exposure of 18 seconds and colors to the left are from the sunset already long gone.

Moonlight Lightning

These next couple were shot around 11PM with an 11s exposure. The moon was just starting to peak out from the thunderstorm cloud and I was fortunate to capture a couple of sheet lightning bolts with the moon.

Massive City Storm

I don't normally get good lightning photos in the city but this collection worked great as the storm was right overhead and had a massive amount of lightning. Most of these were 3 second exposures, but I had my camera running on continuous shots, so it just took photo after photo, capturing some great lightning with the tripod setup. I shot in different directions, which is why you get some varying colors (also from exposure).

Roof Shot

I know, I know, what are you doing on the roof during a lightning storm?? haha, taking pictures of course. Actually my house here had a roof I could get onto from an upstairs window, so that is all I did, I reached out and setup a tripod on the roof, but I was still leaning out the window sill.

This is taken at midnight with an 19s exposure.

Lakeside Lightning

These last couple are shot with a tripod at the lakeside. Both around 10:30pm and using about a 20s exposure.

I've taken many more and have seen some fantastic lightning I never got good shots off, so I hope you like these ones I have to share. Please follow and vote and I'll keep more photos coming.