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So I was hanging out on iCCup just after sunset when I noticed how pretty these clouds were off in the distance. It was so pretty I decided to take a picture:
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Because the clouds were so tall, on the bottom half the sun had set, but the top half of the clouds was still seeing the sunset, so it was half pink and half white. Very pretty 
Anyway, this cloud was pretty damn big. We don't usually get storm clouds like this in Auckland. It's usually pretty boring weather, unlike in US where you see tornadoes and monster cloud systems. The cloud looked pretty out of place too because the rest of the sky was completely clear. It looked like it was just minding it's own business and moving along.
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Later that night, after having played a couple of games on iCC, I noticed out of the corner of my eye some lights through the window. I went for a closer look and I was shocked to see huge flashes of light in the distance, where the lightning was lighting up the whole cloud. Sometimes it was bright enough to light up the rain that was coming down as well, so you'd see the whole cloud plus a huge sheet of rain all lit up in gold. A bit to the east and farther away, lightning was happening behind another large cloud, so everytime lightning went off it looked like an explosion with light spreading upwards (like a sun rising up above clouds sorta thing, and the light radiates outwards, but this time it was a light blue light). Cool stuff.
I was so mesmerised by the light show that I decided to try and take some pictures of it. I had a general idea of how to do it from watching some show about a guy who tries and captures lightning on film for a hobby. I used my old Canon Powershot G5 on a 5 second exposure and lowest F stop I could, with focus at infinity. This way I'd have a 5 second window to capture any lightning that occured. (Annoyingly my camera does an automatic dark frame subtraction which I can't turn off, so after every exposure, the camera was out of action for another 5 seconds while it takes the dark frame). I laid my camera on the window sill and used a folded cloth to tilt it slightly upwards. Not exactly the best setup but it was adequate lol.
It was really fun to try and estimate how often the lightning was occuring and to anticipate when the next one would occur. I took quite a few shots, about 150 or so. This shot gives an idea of the context of the lightning strikes:
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And then here are some photos cropped from the best 4 shots of the night (the last one is easily the best):
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So ya, that's my first attempt at shooting lightning, and it turned out pretty well Was real fun and of course awesome to watch. It was so exciting when I opened the shutter and hope for the lightning to flash in those 5 seconds, and when it did I hurriedly look to see if I had captured it. Weather like this hardly ever occurs in Auckland so I was real lucky. Hope you enjoy ^^
On a completely unrelated note, I found this short video of this lego project I worked on a few years ago in my photobucket account that was my best ever construction:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v221/skyglow1/?action=view¤t=legastro3.flv
The video is actually sped up 4 times. It's a mount I made for my finderscope (mini telescope parallel to the main telescope which is used for aiming the main telescope). It's got variable speeds when rotating on the vertical axis but only one speed when tilting. It's even got a rotation sensor (blue rectangle thing in middle center) to calibrate the backlash. I had so much fun making this and I was hoping to improve on it, but never got round to it 
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wow looks like some1 summoned shenron....
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so that was what you were talking about last night, i thought you were on weeds and imagining clouds of smoke as you smoke them weeds
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well done pics imo
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United States24740 Posts
Taking pictures of lightning is awesome. What's amazing about this story... is how you did it on the spot with no preparation!
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Nice pics.
Kind of unrelated, but: New Zealand is a beautiful place (especially the southern island). Loved everything about it when I visited.
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On January 15 2009 08:03 micronesia wrote:
Taking pictures of lightning is awesome. What's amazing about this story... is how you did it on the spot with no preparation!
Agreed. I definitely remember reading about how hard taking pictures of lightning is, and you did it pretty damn well. Good job!
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How do you take pictures of lightning? Just keep clicking away?
I heard that the best way to take lightning is just to set super-long exposure times (10 secish depending on frequency), since the lightning creates its own flash, as long as it's dark enough you'll get a picture of any lightning within the exposure time. Was it dark enough to use this method?
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Germany / USA16648 Posts
I love thunderstorms.
I also love clouds, cloud formations, changing light outside etc.
Nicely done btw :p
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On January 15 2009 08:39 theonemephisto wrote:
How do you take pictures of lightning? Just keep clicking away?
I heard that the best way to take lightning is just to set super-long exposure times (10 secish depending on frequency), since the lightning creates its own flash, as long as it's dark enough you'll get a picture of any lightning within the exposure time. Was it dark enough to use this method?
I settled on a 5 second exposure (well actually that's just what I set it to randomly then couldn't be bothered changing it to try something different lol). I think it worked pretty well because at 5 seconds is long enough to act as a good window of time to catch the flash, but shrot enough that the background light doesn't build up too much. You can already see in my photos all the other light that's around in the street. 10 seconds woukd've probably washed out the lightning too much. Also if I had used 10 seconds then the thing would've done a 10 second dark frame which would've been annoying to wait through.
As for the clicking, I'd start clicking a couple times to get a feel for how often the flashes were occuring, then I'd count in my head how ever many seconds I think it'd be before the next one, then click and hope and for the best lol. Usually I ended up clicking too early then the flash occurs while the camera was taking a dark frame, then I'd wait out the next 10 seconds before clicking again.
What you don't see in the post is the other 150 failed shots with nothing in the picture lol. But it was well worth it when I managed to snag a good shot.
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SkyGlow where do you live in New Zealand? Anywhere near Pakuranga/Bucklands Beach by any chance? I grew up in New Zealand before I moved here and I deathly miss that place :-(
I went to Forest Hill primary school and Macleans Primary School.
My family would take regular trips to Rotorua and such...
You're so lucky to live in such a beautiful nation
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China7078 Posts
holy shit, those clouds looked like its gonna eat the earth.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
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All of them are amazing.....Im surprised no tornado came around. I'm from Texas and when you see clouds like that you better be prepped for some wind and other horrible shit especially during Tornado season.
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Go to the link guys. There's some sexy ass pics in there of the thunderstorm waiting to happen.
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On January 15 2009 08:48 skyglow1 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2009 08:39 theonemephisto wrote:
How do you take pictures of lightning? Just keep clicking away?
I heard that the best way to take lightning is just to set super-long exposure times (10 secish depending on frequency), since the lightning creates its own flash, as long as it's dark enough you'll get a picture of any lightning within the exposure time. Was it dark enough to use this method? I settled on a 5 second exposure (well actually that's just what I set it to randomly then couldn't be bothered changing it to try something different lol). I think it worked pretty well because at 5 seconds is long enough to act as a good window of time to catch the flash, but shrot enough that the background light doesn't build up too much. You can already see in my photos all the other light that's around in the street. 10 seconds woukd've probably washed out the lightning too much. Also if I had used 10 seconds then the thing would've done a 10 second dark frame which would've been annoying to wait through. As for the clicking, I'd start clicking a couple times to get a feel for how often the flashes were occuring, then I'd count in my head how ever many seconds I think it'd be before the next one, then click and hope and for the best lol. Usually I ended up clicking too early then the flash occurs while the camera was taking a dark frame, then I'd wait out the next 10 seconds before clicking again. What you don't see in the post is the other 150 failed shots with nothing in the picture lol. But it was well worth it when I managed to snag a good shot.
Love the pictures, the color is so pretty. As for shooting lightning your probably better off setting the shutter to bulb and just holding down the shutter release until you get lightning or until its been long enough to overexpose the image. I've been meaning to do some shots of lightning sometime; haven't had a good storm lately though.
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Nice pictures, especially the end where you see the lightening bolt
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On January 15 2009 09:25 ItsYoungLee wrote:
SkyGlow where do you live in New Zealand? Anywhere near Pakuranga/Bucklands Beach by any chance? I grew up in New Zealand before I moved here and I deathly miss that place :-(
I went to Forest Hill primary school and Macleans Primary School.
My family would take regular trips to Rotorua and such...
You're so lucky to live in such a beautiful nation
Nah I live quite a bit north of there. I actually went to Westlake Boys High School which is just beside forest hill primary.
Been to Rotorua a couple times but can't say I liked it lol. The smell is too intense. Yeah NZ is really pretty ^_^ I get to study in south island too which is a big plus.
On January 15 2009 11:00 Kennelie wrote:
All of them are amazing.....Im surprised no tornado came around. I'm from Texas and when you see clouds like that you better be prepped for some wind and other horrible shit especially during Tornado season.
There was a waterspout that could've easily killed some people but didn't. There was bad hail and heavy rain and of course lightning, but nothing compared to what happens in tornado alley lol.
Thanks for the comments guys
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Belgium6773 Posts
Ahh observing lightning etc. is super fun
Great pics!
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EPT![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v221/skyglow1/cloud1.jpg)
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