How to photograph lightning

The strike of lightning, what a sight to behold!

Lighting is an incredible subject to photograph, whilst strikes may be few and far between depending on where you live, the opportunity to capture it’s raw beauty should not be missed. Some photographers plan for months preparing for such an event, plotting their compositions, other photographers choose to purposefully chase storms in the hope of capturing the drama of a lightning storm. However you choose to chase down your next photograph, there are a few tips and tricks that will certainly help you make the most of it

Put safety first

Few things are as stunning as a lightning storm, and few things are as dangerous. To capture stunning landscape photographs that capture nature at its most raw and powerful, you need to first understand it, in doing so will allow you to approach your subject safely, appreciating that poor decisions can easily lead to death.
In this article we’ll explore all aspects of lighting so you can plan your trips and take beautiful landscape photographs in full confidence that you’ve completed your due diligence.

The best equipment to photograph lightning

Equipment you’ll need:

Camera – DSLR or mirrorless camera, or any camera capable of shooting long exposures
A tripod I like Manfrotto Tripods
Rain protection for you and your camera
Weather app on your phone that shows lightning storms – Try My Lighting Tracker app or Spark app
Intervalometer – check it’s the right fit for your camera!

In order to give yourself a genuine chance of capturing a strike, you need to have the shutter open for an extended period of time. Why? They happen so fast that you’ll never be able to time it.

You’ll need to put your camera on a tripod, have the ISO low (ISO 100) and the aperture set high (around f/8).

Try your shutter speed at around 5 seconds and check how the scene is exposed. Adjust accordingly. You want the scene to be slightly underexposed, because when lightning strikes, the light intensity will be so great it will have the potential to overexpose your scene quite easily.

The best shutter speed and camera settings for lightning photography

Set up camera on a tripod
Set the camera focus to manual and then focus to infinity
Set your aperture to f/8
Set your ISO to 100
Set the shutter speed to between 5 and 20 seconds
Make some practice exposures and tweak the shutter speed, make sure your image is slightly underexposed. A lightning strike will generate a lot of light.
Compose your picture and wait! Try to predict the next strike and take intermittent exposures.

The best lens for lightning photography

In the interest of safety, you want to be on the edge of a storm. So in order to protect myself, I’m going to say that you should be miles away from a storm and photograph it with a very long lens to be completely safe. Any risks you take are your own and I take no responsibility if you go storm chasing.

The wider you shoot the greater your chances of capturing a strike, my advice for beginners would be to shoot wide on a high megapixel camera so you can always crop your image later an still have a really good high resolution file. In all honesty, alot of it is luck, you compose your shot first and then hope that the strike lands within your composition.

I primarily use the Canon 17-40 f/4 to photograph landscapes or where I want to emphasise scale. I don’t use it that often, so spending the extra money on the 16-35 was pointless as I’ll be stopping down to f/16 anyway. The two images above were taken at approximately a 24mm focal length. I have also used the Sigma 50mm 1.4, I think it’s the sharpest lens I’ve ever used. A Canon 35mm f1.4 and a Canon 85mm 1.8 (because the autofocus on the 1.2 is so slow I couldn’t bear it).

There is absolutely no set way to shoot lightning, it all depends on your intentions. If you want to capture the scale of the storm relative to a town or city like the picture above, then you’ll want a wide angle lens in the 20mm-35mm range. If you want to capture a very specific part of a scene and hope that lightning lands in your frame then a mid telephoto of 50mm-85mm will suffice.

How to photograph lightning in the daytime

Camera settings for photographing day-time lightning

Use a tripod
Set the lens to manual focus and focus camera to infinity
Set the aperture as high as it will go, f/16 or above
Your ISO setting should be as low as it will go, probably ISO100
Shutter speed – this will vary depending on your scene, but it is the only exposure variable you should change. Start with 10 seconds and adjust accordingly.
Ideally you would have a remote trigger to continuously take pictures one after the other
If your image is still too bright you may need neutral density filters to lower the exposure further

What is the best shutter speed for lightning?

Short answer = as slow as possible.

If you’re taking photographs at night then it should be no problem achieving shutter speeds of ten seconds or more with your ISO set to 100 and your aperture as small as it will go, anything above f/16 for example. You want to have your shutter open for as long as possible without over exposing your image, this way all you have to do is open the shutter and wait for a lightning bolt to strike.

Thunder and lightning = very very frightening

Where there’s lightning, there will be thunder. What is thunder? it is the sound of air expanding when it is rapidly heated by a bolt of electricity.

Light travels faster than sound, BUT, lightning causes thunder, so if we know that they happened at the same time, yet our senses detect them at an interval, we can calculate how far away the lightning strike was.

This is handy as you can quickly calculate in your head if a storm is moving towards you. Safety first.

Light travels so fast that we see the lightning strike near instantaneously, whereas it takes a few seconds for the sound of thunder to catch up as it moves so much slower. The sound of thunder will travel roughly a Mile every 5 seconds. So, if we divide the number of seconds between seeing the flash and hearing the thunder by 5, we now know the lightnings distance in Miles.

Where to shelter if you get caught out in a lightning storm

Did they teach you about Michael Faraday in school? The Faraday cage ring any bells? The safest place to be in a lightning storm is inside a fully enclosed structure, such as a building or a car. Make sure your windows are closed and stand away from the windows, electronics, wiring or plumbing. If the storm is severe consider turning off the electric in your house. Stay safe!