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Thanks Alpha_7 for teaching me the other day that storm=camera. I remembered this time.

Taken from my loungeroom window, some rain spots on the glass.

You have learned well my young apprentice


Excellent stuff Doug!!! Lightning is just so exciting!

Great shot Doug - what settings did you use for this ??

Thanks Craig! Did you get anything tonight?

cc@t, focus set to infinity and f/8. ISO 200.

Crikey Doug. Tha's magnificent.

cc@t wrote:Great shot Doug - what settings did you use for this ??

Doug wrote:cc@t, focus set to infinity and f/8. ISO 200

Doug I was looking at the Exif data, it says f5 and 8 sec exposure.

while I could see the ligth shot from my place, it was just lighting up the sky.. not actualy bolts of lightning.. the tripod is still setup outside if it comes back.

Alpha_7 wrote:Doug I was looking at the Exif data, it says f5 and 8 sec exposure.

Ah, you are right, I should have checked. I took more than 100 photos, and most were manual focus @ infinity, for 8 or 10 secs (I tried both).

This one wasn't. As Craig said, it was f/5 for 8 or 10 seconds. How unusual.

Out of the 100 or so shots, was was your hit rate ? Were you using the remote... (still hanging out to get it).

Thanks Steve for your comment. Of course it's all luck. There's not much skill pressing the remote control button every 8 or 10 seconds. It's just a matter of time until something comes up, if there's lightning around. There's no controlling how good the lightening will look. This was my first go at photographing lightning. I'm happy that I got one decent photo.

Ah damn. Looks like I missed a good lightning storm, would've been nice to add a few more shots to my collection... plus, my gf just gave me an early Christmas present today -- the ML-L3 remote. It would've been nice to give it a whirl during the lightning storm!

Anyways, you've got a great shot there Doug, nice job!

Sweeet.

Magic shot Doug.

Nice work Doug! Congrats!

Craig, I got this one, this was the only one in more than a hundred shots. There was a more spectacular one that I missed, but other than that it was just sheet lightning. At least in the sky where my camera was pointed. If there was more of this kind of lightning, I would have got more photos. So, I'd prefer to think of the hit rate as 50% as there were 2 worth photographing, and I got one. I'm not proud of that, as the one I missed was 3 or 4 bolts heading straight down to the ground.

Thanks d70_n00b, Leigh, Greg & Geoff for your comments. I appreciate them.

Potatis nice capture But don't use ladders withe these type shots

Doug - well done, a great capture.

I set up everything and what did I get - zilch

Too dangerous, you're right LostDingo. I stayed indoors for this one.

Chris, there wasn't much lightning to photograph anyway. I just got this one. We can try again next time. Thanks for your comment.

excellent capture, the shot can be PS into a night time sydney harbour photo to add a recognizable location to it.

Nice photo Doug.

Alpha_7 wrote:

cc@t wrote:Great shot Doug - what settings did you use for this ??

Doug wrote:cc@t, focus set to infinity and f/8. ISO 200

Doug I was looking at the Exif data, it says f5 and 8 sec exposure.

while I could see the ligth shot from my place, it was just lighting up the sky.. not actualy bolts of lightning.. the tripod is still setup outside if it comes back.

Somewhat OT here, but how do you look at the EXIF data of photos on this forum?

Andrew

I use Opanda IExif to view the Exif data, it only works on the some, as most galleries strip the data from their midsize and thumbnail.

Lovely image well timed. You'll need to becareful you don't end up with Don King style hair
cheers
marco

Thanks Craig

nito wrote:excellent capture, the shot can be PS into a night time sydney harbour photo to add a recognizable location to it.

I could do that, nito, but I think I recognise outside my loungeroom window even more.

Thanks Andrew for your comment. As Craig said, Opanda IExif is good. It's free. With my photos though, the only way you can use Opanda IExif is if you saved my photo to your computer first. Whilst I don't mind people doing that with my photos, other people might with theirs.

Thanks Marco. I was just as far away from the lightning as everyone else. I was in my loungeroom. If my hair goes spikey, so should everyone else's. Hehe

Doug,

Those raindrops are a blessing. Imagine the shot without them and I think you'd find that pretty hideous yellow brick block of flats to be quite a distraction.

A great opportunity masterfully handled. I love it.

I've just downloaded Opanda. Thanks for the heads up guys.

Doug, why do I have to save your images to my PC first? If I just right click on the image I can access the EXIF through Opanda. Am I missing something here?

Andrew

Potatis wrote:
I could do that, nito, but I think I recognise outside my loungeroom window even more.

Hahah true oh so true!

ABG wrote:I've just downloaded Opanda. Thanks for the heads up guys.

Doug, why do I have to save your images to my PC first? If I just right click on the image I can access the EXIF through Opanda. Am I missing something here?

Andrew

I can do the same ABG, it can depend on a few things, but your certainly not missing something. Essentially the file is being 'saved' in your internet broswers cache, once the complete image has appeared then you can right click and read the exif data, if you try before it has fully loaded, you'll get an error message. Not all browsers handle access to files in their cache the same, but IE doesn't have a problem with you view the exif data from its cached version. If you were to save a copy, as doug suggest you would essentially have two copies of the file (albeit temporarily) (speeling:))

Andrew you are right. I recently updated to the latest version. My old version would not show the exif of my photos on this forum. Now it seems to. I'm glad you've got it worked out though.

Thanks once again Craig and Doug. Nifty little program

Doug
As far as lightening images go , this is one of the more interesting. Good capture.

Doug

This is a really good lightning pic and I'm jealous. BTW There's a Firefox version of Opand EXIF too.

Congratulations on a fantastic image Potatis! It's not easy to capture. I was out on Friday night attempting the same thing in Melbourne, but the storms died as they reached me, and the lightning was way too infrequent to capture anything decent. I got 4 strikes out of about 375...thank goodness I wasn't using film ! Not worthy of posting....the lightning was still too far away. I'm keen but Mother Nature refuses to deliver

A great image, keep it up, love lightning shots!

Sheetshooter, thanks for your kind comments. I agree with you about the rain on the window. Sorry for not replying to you sooner, somehow I missed your post.

Matt, yes the lightning is interesting. Of course that was out of my control. I could have easily ended up with no photos. Thanks for your comment.

Stubbsy thanks for your comment, I appreciate it. As I said to Matt, I was lucky to get this lightning that's all. No great technique. I can't believe my aperture was F5, I wonder how that happened?

Thanks for your comments stormygirl. I know what it's like. I took about 165 photos, and nearly all of them had no lightning. It's so exciting though when the shutter is open and you see the lightning bolt flash across the sky before your eyes. Then there's the excitement of waiting for the shutter to close to see the image displayed on the camera's LCD screen. It's displayed and there it is! It makes up for all those shots where nothing happened. Keep trying, in time you just have to get an excellent shot.

Great lightning shot Doug, well done

Thanks Greg.