Dancing with Lightning

[JimFox]

I don't really dance or like to dance, but I have dancing on my mind for some reason.

Last night I got a bit surprised last night with a pretty epic lightning storm in Greeley Colorado where my daughter lives. I was out driving and saw that there was some lightning off in the distance, so I went to the local small lakes area where I trail run, and set up and took photos of it for an hour or so during sunset. As it got darker, the lightning bolts faded away and transitioned to just lighting up the clouds. Since it was darker now, I wrapped it up to head to my daughters house which was about 10 minutes away.

As I got about a block away from her house, I noticed that the lightning bolts were back out and it was pretty much 360 degree lightning bolts including overhead. Despite the storm seeming to be on me, there wasn't any rain yet, so I drove the 10 minutes back to the lake area. When I got there it started to rain pretty heavy! I rolled down my window and got nailed with sideways rain. I had thought about lifting the tailgate up on my 4Runner and using it for protection from the rain, but when rain is going sideways there is no stopping it. I was still contemplating getting out as the bolts of lightning were so awesome, but then the bolt's of lightning seemed to be crashing all around me, like super close. So I decided getting electrocuted twice in a week was not a good idea. (Earlier I had accidentally rubbed my leg against a fence that wasn't marked but found out it was an electric fence to keep cows in and I guess me out)

So I headed back to my daughters thinking that I could maybe set up my camera inside the patio door or something to try and provide some protection from the rain. I ended up setting up my D850 with my Sigma 14mm f1.8 lens on and I ended up in my grandsons 2nd story window. Earlier in the day I had removed the screen from his window as it had a hole in it and needed the screening replaced. So I setup my tripod with the camera next to the window. I would slide the window open (sideways) and take a bunch of photos. When I got a lightning bolt, I would stop shooting and then close the window and wipe the rain off the lens. Then I would open the window and started shooting again until I got more lightning. Which in the beginning was about once every 5 seconds...

The 14mm was too wide, but my idea was I would just crop out the window frame when processing (which I did). My 14mm is my fastest lens and I wanted to be able to shoot with a faster shutter speed then I normally would because it was super windy and blowing the trees around so much making them blurry in some photos.

My daughter then got some warnings of severe hail. So I ran back out front and drove my 4 Runner up into the front yard underneath a huge tree there so the branches could protect my truck from hail damage. (Hail damage has become a big issue the last 5 or 6 years in Colorado). Running back up stairs, I grabbed some towels to put on the floor as the carpet was getting soaked from when I would slide the window open. Standing next to my tripod and pressing the Remote Release, I was also getting soaked, so I ran down to my room and put on my swimming trunks since if I was going to get wet, I might as well wear the right gear.

We ended up getting some smaller hail at my daughters house. In downtown Greeley about 7 or 8 miles away they get blasted with hail. So we got lucky on that.

So I started with 1 second shutter speeds, but dropped it down to 1/2 sec as I recognized the wind was blowing the trees so much. I knew there would still be some movement at times of the leaves and branches, but knowing I could be photographing for an hour or so, I didn't want to be trying to deal with too many photos afterwards. As it was, my D850 captured over 5000 photos of the lightning.

Nikon D850
Sigma 14mm f1.8

ISO 400
1/2 sec shutter
f2.8

All comments are welcome,

Jim

 

[Trent Watts]

What an adventure Jim. That must have been quite thrilling, boarding on terrifying. Quite impressive results for sure. I love how you can also see the rain as a film running off the house.

 

[AlanLichty]

Neat result - I like that you can see the spray from the rain pounding the neighbor's roof with the lightning backlighting.

Wind driven rain is no fun to shoot in and is something I have tried enough times out along the coast during the winter months to qualify me to be declared insane. I did set up a tripod on the passenger seat of my wife's X3 once with the passenger window oriented away from the wind. I set the camera up for the shot and then dropped the passenger window to grab the shot and promptly close it. I didn't take into account how the wind will swirl over and then backwards once it passes the shape of the vehicle. It was a good thing I had hotel towels with me to help sop up a lot of what made it inside before my wife saw the wet mess

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Neat view of lightning and rain. I once had my camera soaked in a sudden downpour and it failed to power up later. Had to replace the circuit board and that wasn't cheap.

 

[JimFox]

What an adventure Jim. That must have been quite thrilling, boarding on terrifying. Quite impressive results for sure. I love how you can also see the rain as a film running off the house.

Yeah, there were times in the storm where the wind was really driving the rain so hard. I saw that too and thought the rain coming off the roof was super cool.

 

[JimFox]

Neat result - I like that you can see the spray from the rain pounding the neighbor's roof with the lightning backlighting.

Wind driven rain is no fun to shoot in and is something I have tried enough times out along the coast during the winter months to qualify me to be declared insane. I did set up a tripod on the passenger seat of my wife's X3 once with the passenger window oriented away from the wind. I set the camera up for the shot and then dropped the passenger window to grab the shot and promptly close it. I didn't take into account how the wind will swirl over and then backwards once it passes the shape of the vehicle. It was a good thing I had hotel towels with me to help sop up a lot of what made it inside before my wife saw the wet mess

Thanks Alan! Yeah, I liked that spray off the roof too.

It's funny, I actually thought about doing the tripod inside the car idea. My problem when I was at the lake was I would have had to have gotten out of my truck to go get the tripod, so I didn't do it. That's funny how the wind dynamices of the roof forced the rain back in!

 

[JimFox]

Neat view of lightning and rain. I once had my camera soaked in a sudden downpour and it failed to power up later. Had to replace the circuit board and that wasn't cheap.

Thanks Jameel.

Because of the time I spend photographing at the ocean I have several rain jackets for my camera to keep the water off of it. In this case the camera was high enough in the window opening that some spray was getting on the lens, but the camera stayed dried. That's too bad you had a camera get fried like that. The only time that happened to me was once at the beach with my Nikon D700 and it decided to go for a swim in the ocean. It did not survive despite my frantic CPR I gave it after.

 

[BlackRockArt]

I don't really dance or like to dance, but I have dancing on my mind for some reason.

Last night I got a bit surprised last night with a pretty epic lightning storm in Greeley Colorado where my daughter lives. I was out driving and saw that there was some lightning off in the distance, so I went to the local small lakes area where I trail run, and set up and took photos of it for an hour or so during sunset. As it got darker, the lightning bolts faded away and transitioned to just lighting up the clouds. Since it was darker now, I wrapped it up to head to my daughters house which was about 10 minutes away.

As I got about a block away from her house, I noticed that the lightning bolts were back out and it was pretty much 360 degree lightning bolts including overhead. Despite the storm seeming to be on me, there wasn't any rain yet, so I drove the 10 minutes back to the lake area. When I got there it started to rain pretty heavy! I rolled down my window and got nailed with sideways rain. I had thought about lifting the tailgate up on my 4Runner and using it for protection from the rain, but when rain is going sideways there is no stopping it. I was still contemplating getting out as the bolts of lightning were so awesome, but then the bolt's of lightning seemed to be crashing all around me, like super close. So I decided getting electrocuted twice in a week was not a good idea. (Earlier I had accidentally rubbed my leg against a fence that wasn't marked but found out it was an electric fence to keep cows in and I guess me out)

So I headed back to my daughters thinking that I could maybe set up my camera inside the patio door or something to try and provide some protection from the rain. I ended up setting up my D850 with my Sigma 14mm f1.8 lens on and I ended up in my grandsons 2nd story window. Earlier in the day I had removed the screen from his window as it had a hole in it and needed the screening replaced. So I setup my tripod with the camera next to the window. I would slide the window open (sideways) and take a bunch of photos. When I got a lightning bolt, I would stop shooting and then close the window and wipe the rain off the lens. Then I would open the window and started shooting again until I got more lightning. Which in the beginning was about once every 5 seconds...

The 14mm was too wide, but my idea was I would just crop out the window frame when processing (which I did). My 14mm is my fastest lens and I wanted to be able to shoot with a faster shutter speed then I normally would because it was super windy and blowing the trees around so much making them blurry in some photos.

My daughter then got some warnings of severe hail. So I ran back out front and drove my 4 Runner up into the front yard underneath a huge tree there so the branches could protect my truck from hail damage. (Hail damage has become a big issue the last 5 or 6 years in Colorado). Running back up stairs, I grabbed some towels to put on the floor as the carpet was getting soaked from when I would slide the window open. Standing next to my tripod and pressing the Remote Release, I was also getting soaked, so I ran down to my room and put on my swimming trunks since if I was going to get wet, I might as well wear the right gear.

We ended up getting some smaller hail at my daughters house. In downtown Greeley about 7 or 8 miles away they get blasted with hail. So we got lucky on that.

So I started with 1 second shutter speeds, but dropped it down to 1/2 sec as I recognized the wind was blowing the trees so much. I knew there would still be some movement at times of the leaves and branches, but knowing I could be photographing for an hour or so, I didn't want to be trying to deal with too many photos afterwards. As it was, my D850 captured over 5000 photos of the lightning.

Nikon D850
Sigma 14mm f1.8

ISO 400
1/2 sec shutter
f2.8

All comments are welcome,

Jim

View attachment 72852

Jim, great catch !

Oliver

 

[JimFox]

Jim, great catch !

Oliver

Thanks Oliver!