In the subtropics of Australia we get quite a few thunderstorms each summer. The awesome power of nature is quite a spectacle, especially at night when the lightning illuminates the sky. Getting a great photograph of lightning requires some planning and a bit of luck. Getting a fairly ordinary photograph of lightning is not that hard, though. The photo shown below is in the latter category unfortunately, but it was still quite satisfying to capture the electric steaks. I was away on holiday when this photographic opportunity arose one evening.

Lightning Night Shot 

I had my Pentax K100D camera with a Pentax 18-55mm kit lens, but I had no tripod or cable release with me. To take the shot I sat the camera on a stool and put a book under the lens to get the camera pointing roughly in the right direction where most of storm activity was happening. With the lens at the wide angle setting (18mm), shutter set to 30s and aperture set at f8 and ISO at 200 I took several shots and the one shown below was one of the better ones.

By using a fairly slow shutter speed, you increase the odds of capturing a lightning strike. I had the camera on manual mode, since I didn’t have a cable release with me to use the Bulb (B) mode. But if you have a cable release you could use B mode and just close the shutter after you get a lightning strike.

You don’t need an SLR for this kind of shot - as long as you can use a shutter speed of more than 10 seconds you should be able to take lightning night shots with your point and shoot.

• Camera Make: PENTAX Corporation
• Camera Model: PENTAX K100D
• Image Date: 2007:10:08 19:47:23
• Flash Used: No
• Focal Length: 18.0mm (35mm equivalent: 27mm)
• Exposure Time: 30.000 s
• Aperture: f/8.0
• ISO equiv: 200
• White Balance: Auto
• Metering Mode: Spot
• Exposure: Manual
• Exposure Mode: Manual

Lightning During the Day

It is harder to get good lightning shots during the day as you can’t use such long exposure times without overexposing the shot. I have tried but not with any success yet. What I’ve been trying to do is set the ISO to lowest setting, set the aperture to smallest (f22 or f32) to get the longest exposure possible then use continuous shooting in the hope that I’ll be lucky and catch a lightning strike.