Blitzortung and Photography

[psper]

Hi,

I am an amateur photographer and I am interested to take lightning photos. :-)

I am alone here at Blitzortung.com or there are more people with the same interest ?

I start to use Blitzortung.com to help me find lightning in real time.

In my country there aren't so many storms, and I read that Catatumbo River, Venezuela is the beste place in the wrould to see lightning storms.

Any ideas about this ?  Some advices ? 

Many thanks in advance !
Paulo Sérgio

[Jorgeminator]

Hi,

I am an amateur photographer and I am interested to take lightning photos. :-)

I am alone here at Blitzortung.com or there are more people with the same interest ?

I start to use Blitzortung.com to help me find lightning in real time.

In my country there aren't so many storms, and I read that Catatumbo River, Venezuela is the beste place in the wrould to see lightning storms.

Any ideas about this ?  Some advices ? 

Many thanks in advance !
Paulo Sérgio

You are definitely not alone. I share the same interest, although I usually don't have much time to do lightning photography. The lightning season up here in Finland is relatively short, too, and the storms are usually not very intense. I have still managed to snap a few images. There are many ways to do lightning photography, just get a decent DSLR and experiment with shutter speeds, ISO and so on. Here is my favorite shot that I took two summers ago. 

[chubros]

Of course you are not alone!!!
Same interest here in Greece. All my lightning photos here... https://www.flickr.com/photos/chubros/tags/lightnings/

[psper]

Of course you are not alone!!!
Same interest here in Greece. All my lightning photos here... https://www.flickr.com/photos/chubros/tags/lightnings/

Fantastic photos!
I already try 5 times try to get lightning photos...and no luck! :-( I will start to use Blitzortung to guide me better to a good position to takephotos....I hope.
Can you share some advices ?

[psper]

Hi,

I am an amateur photographer and I am interested to take lightning photos. :-)

I am alone here at Blitzortung.com or there are more people with the same interest ?

I start to use Blitzortung.com to help me find lightning in real time.

In my country there aren't so many storms, and I read that Catatumbo River, Venezuela is the beste place in the wrould to see lightning storms.

Any ideas about this ?  Some advices ? 

Many thanks in advance !
Paulo Sérgio

You are definitely not alone. I share the same interest, although I usually don't have much time to do lightning photography. The lightning season up here in Finland is relatively short, too, and the storms are usually not very intense. I have still managed to snap a few images. There are many ways to do lightning photography, just get a decent DSLR and experiment with shutter speeds, ISO and so on. Here is my favorite shot that I took two summers ago. 

Good !

Can you share some advices ?

[Lunarstorm777]

Right here with you as well. Love using this app for lightning photography. Only thing that would make it better is a night-time mode for the map. What sort of things are you having trouble with?

[psper]

Right here with you as well. Love using this app for lightning photography. Only thing that would make it better is a night-time mode for the map. What sort of things are you having trouble with?

Hi Lunarstorm777, 

I never use Blitzortung before because I only discovery Blitzortung  APP 3 days ago, so until now I just use 30 min delayed lightning maps and what i see and ear. I never  find a good position to take photos.

Second, normaly I was lost try to find lightning or really under the strom  what is very dificult to take pics. I believe that most lightning photos are a litle bit far from the lightning or under some place that we can avoid rain to make 20/30 exposures.

I use an intrevalometer to take consecutive 20/30 exposures.

[Lunarstorm777]

Right here with you as well. Love using this app for lightning photography. Only thing that would make it better is a night-time mode for the map. What sort of things are you having trouble with?

Hi Lunarstorm777, 

I never use Blitzortung before because I only discovery Blitzortung  APP 3 days ago, so until now I just use 30 min delayed lightning maps and what i see and ear. I never  find a good position to take photos.

Second, normaly I was lost try to find lightning or really under the strom  what is very dificult to take pics. I believe that most lightning photos are a litle bit far from the lightning or under some place that we can avoid rain to make 20/30 exposures.

I use an intrevalometer to take consecutive 20/30 exposures.

Hello to you as well,
I've been using Blitzortung for this reason for a while now. The phone app makes it a LOT easier to say the least. I usually use Blitzortung and also an app called "On your radar" for radar looping to guess where a storm is going.

As far as finding a good spot to shoot from, scout out locations during the day before a storm is predicted and mark them on a GPS unit. Then when a storm fires up you already know where you are going. Open fields are always good locations. I actually had a great shoot in the middle of my town one night from a parking garage. I won't bore anyone with warnings about lightning safety and risk, since, we all know what were getting into here.

I definitely try not to take pics from under a storm lol. Aside from being a prime lightning rod, usually, your gonna end up getting soaked. I try and stay at least a few miles away from the actual storm and try to stay ahead of it, since usually you will be rain wrapped otherwise. I usually have the best luck on days when "Isolated Thunderstorms" are forecast and not "Scattered Thunderstorms". Isolated storms usually leave more clear air to shoot the profile of a storm and get all of the lightning up in the tops of the clouds vs. the small percent that actually strikes the ground.

Anywho, just my 2 cents. Perhaps someone has better knowledge than I do. I wish I could find a cheap lightning predictor myself. Something that reads the potential charge in the atmosphere and makes a guess as to how long until the next strike. I saw a television show a few years ago with scientists firing rockets into storms to try and trigger lightning strikes. They had such a meter, but I haven't a clue how large, effective, or costly it was.

[rodalco]

Hello, new on this forum but have been using Blitzortung for a few years as I like thunder storms and often take video footage of them.

My best results are taken from stills of the video. 25 frames per second will yield in reasonably good lightning shots.

I go storm chasing in the USA every 2 or 3 years and the guys there have a tracking EMP device attached to their camera which detects the EMP and triggers the camera with pretty good results.

The higher speed the video camera can shoot the better of course.

In New Zealand we get more thunderstorms in Authumn and Winter then in Summer.

[tobyportugal]

http://www.p67world.com/en/

http://www.radio-cb-services.com/DETECTE...LAIRS.html

[psper]

Thanks all for your answers:

As I could understand everyone think that Blitzortung is fantastic to help us take lightening pics .... but about record technic there are at least 3 different approaches.

1 - DSLR with consecutive long exposure, like we do with startrails.
2 - DSLR + some device of this kind (http://www.radio-cb-services.com/DETECTE...LAIRS.html) that help trigger DSLR in precise moment that lightning fire.
3 - Use video and get video frames.

Pros and Cons about this 3 approaches based on your experience ?!

With Zero experience of take lightning pics, I believe that 1 and 2 output have lot more quality...even if the 3th option is 4k video.
But Option 3 (video) maybe is the easiest way to do it.

Thanks

[robo]

I think 1 is the easiest way, you only need a DSLR and a tripod and no further device. The disadvantage is that you can do this only at night. By daylight maybe with a strong neutral-density filter.

CU Robo

[Tobi]

Great to hear that Blitzortung helps for lightning photography. Maybe we will find some solution for predicting lightning strikes, which would make things much easier for you. :-D

It would be great if you could share some of your photos here. We could also use/show them on our Facebook page.

[robo]

Maybe we will find some solution for predicting lightning strikes, which would make things much easier for you. :-D

There's some free space on the blue board. Maybe you can invent a lightning prediction unit. :-D

[psper]

Anybody have more info about how to detect a lightning ?

Lunarstorm777 spoke about "potential charge in the atmosphere" ...anyone have some more information ? Which type of hardware can be used to get it ?

[psper]

Something like this ???

https://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0701/0701296.pdf

[robo]

Something like this ???

https://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0701/0701296.pdf

Search for portable lightning detector with the search engine of your choice.

[cutty]

Right here with you as well. Love using this app for lightning photography. Only thing that would make it better is a night-time mode for the map. What sort of things are you having trouble with?

Hi Lunarstorm777, 

I never use Blitzortung before because I only discovery Blitzortung  APP 3 days ago, so until now I just use 30 min delayed lightning maps and what i see and ear. I never  find a good position to take photos.

Second, normaly I was lost try to find lightning or really under the strom  what is very dificult to take pics. I believe that most lightning photos are a litle bit far from the lightning or under some place that we can avoid rain to make 20/30 exposures.

I use an intrevalometer to take consecutive 20/30 exposures.

Being old and worn out, I don't get much opportunity to chase lightning photograpy any more,
but..
I have an older version of
http://www.aeophoto.com/
I can tell you mine works, and you'll likely get a stroke capture if your camera is pointed toward it. You will get an exposure!  Maybe not a stroke...
A camera with the fastest possible shutter lag , like a Sony A65 (approximately 50 milliseconds) for example.

[psper]

Right here with you as well. Love using this app for lightning photography. Only thing that would make it better is a night-time mode for the map. What sort of things are you having trouble with?

Hi Lunarstorm777, 

I never use Blitzortung before because I only discovery Blitzortung  APP 3 days ago, so until now I just use 30 min delayed lightning maps and what i see and ear. I never  find a good position to take photos.

Second, normaly I was lost try to find lightning or really under the strom  what is very dificult to take pics. I believe that most lightning photos are a litle bit far from the lightning or under some place that we can avoid rain to make 20/30 exposures.

I use an intrevalometer to take consecutive 20/30 exposures.

Being old and worn out, I don't get much opportunity to chase lightning photograpy any more,
but..
I have an older version of
http://www.aeophoto.com/
I can tell you mine works, and you'll likely get a stroke capture if your camera is pointed toward it. You will get an exposure!  Maybe not a stroke...
A camera with the fastest possible shutter lag , like a Sony A65 (approximately 50 milliseconds) for example.

Thanks Cutty,  

Another option to consider!

[chubros]

               

Great to hear that Blitzortung helps for lightning photography. Maybe we will find some solution for predicting lightning strikes, which would make things much easier for you. :-D

It would be great if you could share some of your photos here. We could also use/show them on our Facebook page.

Here are my recent photos from Levadia Central Greece a week ago. Use them as you wish....

Greetings from Greece to all of you...