Filming a lightning storm

Steve Shovlar

Steve Shovlar

DVXuser Sponsor
I would like to film a thunderstorm speeded up coming across the valley here.

Now if I film it at 1 or 2 frames a second I might miss the flash of lightning.

Anyone know the best settings for filming such an event?
 
Stop down your lens and shoot at the slowest shutterspeed possible. That way you will catch the flashes and they wont overexpose your shot.
 
If you shoot at 1 or 2 frames per second with shutter off, you will not miss any lightning.

This is because all light that falls on the camera is integrated in the CMOS and recorded. At a 180° shutter, half of the light (temporally speaking) is thrown away.

Be sure you use S&Q motion and not interval recording. With interval recording, you are sampling only brief instances of the light over the interval of each frame.

You may need to use external ND filtering, as the image will be very bright at that slow exposure. Especially when the lightning strikes.

Also, you may experience partial exposure with some flashes of lightning, though it is highly unlikely given that lightning usually flickers several times and because you are at such a slow frame rate.

One other caveat - some have noticed banding artifacts when shooting at 1 or 2 fps on S&Q. You might want to test this first and closely inspect your footage. Maybe 3 or 4 fps will be better.
 
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