Author Topic: Amazing Lightning Photos! (Read 550 times)

CarlosL · « **on:** August 06, 2002, 09:00:39 PM »

Hey guys I took some pictures outside when we had a crazy lightning storm, figured I'd share them with you. Tell me what you think.

CarlosL · « **Reply #1 on:** August 06, 2002, 09:04:35 PM »

Another

CarlosL · « **Reply #2 on:** August 06, 2002, 09:06:55 PM »

Those two above our my best pics, this one is a little blurred

CarlosL · « **Reply #3 on:** August 06, 2002, 09:10:29 PM »

It was tough to get pictures of this great flashes of light but I tried. If you guys want to know I was using a Sony Cybershot DSC-F707.

Pollock · « **Reply #4 on:** August 06, 2002, 09:12:30 PM »

Carlos great pictures. Did you use a digital or SLR camera.
I have an olympus 2100 ultrazoom and just havent been home at the right times to catch a storm.

I am hoping to use some of the neat features of the camera to simulate an open shutter shot to catch all of the streaks.

CarlosL · « **Reply #5 on:** August 06, 2002, 09:20:51 PM »

I am using a digital camera. Heh still a huge newbie to this stuff, I was just sitting outside taking 3 shot bursts hoping I will catch some nice shots. Thanks.

Gunthr · « **Reply #6 on:** August 06, 2002, 09:30:33 PM »

Nice Carlos! I've got a Sony F707 too. Were you able to use a Tripod, or did you have to get it while the getting was good?

On the miniscule chance that you don't know about this site, here is one of my favorite digital photography sites:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp Check out the forums. VERY informative...

CarlosL · « **Reply #7 on:** August 06, 2002, 09:44:37 PM »

Thanks Gunthr! hey no way! You live in South FL too? Where are you at? BTW I was not using any tripods just my shaky hands hehe

Gunthr · « **Reply #8 on:** August 06, 2002, 10:10:35 PM »

Right next to Ft. Lauderdale

How bout you?

Its tough to shoot low light without a tripod, but sometimes you have to take what you get. I've been trying to get a lightning shot for weeks and weeks...

wsnpr · « **Reply #9 on:** August 07, 2002, 01:51:45 AM »

CarlosL, nice pics!
Gunthr, thanks for the link!
Regards,
wSNPR

Dinger · « **Reply #10 on:** August 07, 2002, 02:15:15 AM »

Heck yeah! Cool stuff!

You can tell it's digital by the couple of maxxed out pixels in the shot. (it happens, no sweat).
The advantage is that you can actually take pictures of lightning, since if you miss a shot -- no sweat! you can delete it!
I got a Nikon Coolpix 995 a couple months ago, and blew about 70 shots on a thunderhead that set up 5 miles east of where I was at about sunset. No danger on this side, but underneath they were blowing the tornado sirens.
There was still plenty of light, so I didn't get the cool effects you got (nice job going for underexposure, btw), but here's probably the best of the ones I took. You can only see part of the lightning bolt in the picture.
(and yeah, I too had to knock down the resolution to get it to fit)

Octavius · « **Reply #11 on:** August 07, 2002, 10:41:51 AM »

nice carlos!

[EDIT: BTW, I know saving the files from a digital camera as .JPG reduces the size... but I cant seem to reduce it enough to attach some other really neat pics. Whats the best way to do this without killing the quality?]

gofaster · « **Reply #12 on:** August 07, 2002, 11:43:55 AM »

Those are pretty cool! I like the first one- good color and texture to it.

When I was in college I took a photography class for fine arts majors (I wasn't in the program, just took the class). One of our projects was landscape photography that depicted some sort of action. The next night we had a good display of upper-atmosphere lightning and I shot it using open-shutter with remote trigger (about 3-second exposures, so I was getting multiple bursts). When class met the following week I turned in my shots. None of the other kids had shot the storm. I got the top honors - smiley face for the week. I still think its one of the best shots I've ever taken.

The kid who took second place had made a pilgrimage to the beach and shot waves. The surf was down that day.

Dinger · « **Reply #13 on:** August 07, 2002, 12:20:35 PM »

In answer to the question, you can't reduce the image memory size without losing quality.
Generally to get it to fit here you have to redimension the image, and use pretty extreme JPEG compression. That compression makes the resultant image look worse (like in my photo above).
If I have time, I often save the image (to be transmitted via email or message board) at different JPEG compression ratios, and find the one that has the best quality/memory ratio.

Dead Man Flying · « **Reply #14 on:** August 07, 2002, 12:51:01 PM »

Damn, I was expecting some photos of a P-38.

-- Todd/Leviathn