An area that I was only passing familiar with until Ben spent the time to share it with some of us, it's in the Blue Valley that can be observed from Skyline Overlook near Factory Butte in Utah. I had gone back over there for sunset possibilities, but mainly to get some more time flying my new DJI Mini 2 drone. I had been photographing with Amy Nelson, but she had left to go back home, so I went back out there. Once out there I went to go fly my drone in the area of the Bentonite Hills, but it was really crazy windy with several storms around me with lightning going crazy. At the same time the sun was beginning to set, so it was a race as to whether the lightning or the sunset would make it's way to me first.
As the race was on, I had little time to spare. The wind was increasingly get stronger, so I set up my tripods with the legs spread almost horizontal while keeping it super low to the ground. I put ND filters on the cameras so I could get shutter speeds in the area of 2 to 3 seconds. And with that I locked in the Remote Shutter Releases and let them rip. I had 3 cameras going at one time, this is with my main camera. The lightning was striking mainly in 2 different areas in front of me, and 1 behind me. So I just focused on the area in front of me as the hills looked better.
The lightning was flashing almost constantly all around me. It was almost like I was in the eye of the storm. I couldn't even see all of the lightning since it was going off in all directions, but I would guess that in the 30 minutes or so I had to capture it, there was at least 300 lightning strikes. I think I captured maybe 30 to 40 of them. I had maybe 15 minutes of shooting when the rain came in. I let the cameras go, I put rain jackets on them, and let them shoot, wiping the front of the lenses as needed. Soon the rain was so bad though I had to pull the cameras back in to my Jeep. There had been flash flood warnings as I was driving out there, so I decided it was time to head back to the main hwy before it flooded and I got stuck in there. After about 10 minutes of driving I was out of the rain, but the lightning was still going off all over, I even had my GoPro videoing while I was driving to catch lightning strikes. Since I was out of the rain, I pulled over, and set up 2 of the cameras again. I was able to catch more lightning until the rain caught up to me about 5 minutes later. I packed up one more time, and then the lightning began to go off really close, and with the rain pouring out of the sky I then hightailed it to the highway with no more stops.
This one only has 1 main strike, I have several with multiple strikes, but I went with the simple one to begin with. And in the end, while the lightning might have won, the sunset still made a pretty good showing I think.
All comments are welcome,
Jim
As the race was on, I had little time to spare. The wind was increasingly get stronger, so I set up my tripods with the legs spread almost horizontal while keeping it super low to the ground. I put ND filters on the cameras so I could get shutter speeds in the area of 2 to 3 seconds. And with that I locked in the Remote Shutter Releases and let them rip. I had 3 cameras going at one time, this is with my main camera. The lightning was striking mainly in 2 different areas in front of me, and 1 behind me. So I just focused on the area in front of me as the hills looked better.
The lightning was flashing almost constantly all around me. It was almost like I was in the eye of the storm. I couldn't even see all of the lightning since it was going off in all directions, but I would guess that in the 30 minutes or so I had to capture it, there was at least 300 lightning strikes. I think I captured maybe 30 to 40 of them. I had maybe 15 minutes of shooting when the rain came in. I let the cameras go, I put rain jackets on them, and let them shoot, wiping the front of the lenses as needed. Soon the rain was so bad though I had to pull the cameras back in to my Jeep. There had been flash flood warnings as I was driving out there, so I decided it was time to head back to the main hwy before it flooded and I got stuck in there. After about 10 minutes of driving I was out of the rain, but the lightning was still going off all over, I even had my GoPro videoing while I was driving to catch lightning strikes. Since I was out of the rain, I pulled over, and set up 2 of the cameras again. I was able to catch more lightning until the rain caught up to me about 5 minutes later. I packed up one more time, and then the lightning began to go off really close, and with the rain pouring out of the sky I then hightailed it to the highway with no more stops.
This one only has 1 main strike, I have several with multiple strikes, but I went with the simple one to begin with. And in the end, while the lightning might have won, the sunset still made a pretty good showing I think.
All comments are welcome,
Jim
