Shooting lightning

[negative_optimist]

I don't usually get the chance to capture a thunder storm and when one did come my way in Nepal; I made a bit of a hash of it. I missed the best shots by not knowing how to setup my camera properly.
Here I took a shot at 2 sec with an open aperature. All I got was a bright cloud


I did get something in the end and the example below shows the shot. I shortened the shot to 20sec as I suspect that the flashes were not bright enough to make an impression on the sensor. It was the best of several and the others came up with lightning forks but with dim representations.


How do I capture bright flashes without constantly pressing the shutter to run short exposures?

--
Aidan

[jet_kit]

Hi Aiden,
You've chosen one of the trickiest subjects going. I once used 2 rolls of 36-exp colour slide film trying to do this in Africa. All I got was 3 mediocre, and 1 'quite good' shot.
It's very much hit and miss I afraid, and you just have to take your chances because you have no idea when the lighting will strike, and where.
I would recommend pointing in the direction of the storm ('cos that's where the lighting is going to be!). Set the ISO to 100 (or less if you can), switch everything to manual and set the aperture at around f5.6, this will depend on how far away the storm is and how intense the lightening. Then try and judge when the next strike will come, they're often fairly predictable in the tropics, then open the shutter just before you think it's time and keep it open until you've had a strike or two. Don't worry about overexposure, it's similar to flash photography - it's the lightning that will do the work. It goes without saying that you must use a tripod.
The big advantage of digital is that you can look at each shot immediately and decide whether the aperture needs to be bigger or smaller for the next attempt.
Good luck

[negative_optimist]

My attempts followed much of what you say here (in the end)
As you say knocking the aperature down seemed to do the trick but the flashes were still faint in some of the less so successful shots. The smaller aperature seemed to not capture the lightning at all.
Looks like I'll have to hold on for another storm and try again

[cosmicma]

something i have wanted to do for a long time capturing lightning but never got round to trying but i would aproach the subject pretty much the same way i capture firework displays

i would set the camera up manualy with apeture around f8 - f11 something i would experiment with considering iv'e never done it before
iso at 100 ( as allready mentioned ) and shutter on bulb
camera on a tripod with remote shutter release

point the camera where the lightening has been striking and hold a black piece of card over the end of the lens , open the shutter and pull the card away from the lens when the lightening strikes or when you think it's going to strike
do this a few times to build the picture up by holding the black card infront and removing it when you think the timings right

hopefully this should help with the overall exposure and with a little luck a few strikes of lighening

like i said i havn't tried this approacch yet but it's the way i would go about it