Landscape Photography - Using Long Exposure to Shoot Lightning

Usually we get our weather here in Perth come in from the west or south, but around about this time of year, every now and then, we get weather come down from the north. As a landscape photographer, I always get a little excited, not because of the large clouds that form over the hills or the large drops of rain that start to fall, but because of the flashes of light that start to dance in amongst the clouds. This tropical weather produces the ideal conditions for tropical storms…I can’t think of a better time to grab my camera and get out shooting.

The radar tells me that the storms are forming over the hills and will be heading south. So I drive up to Toodyay which is situated in the hills of the Darling Range at the edge of the Wheat Belt.

While there’s still some light, I scout around the area for locations that will give me a good look out over the landscape as the storms pass by. When considering a good location I take into account three things; 1, vicinity to the lightning as it passes, 2. make sure nothing is obstructing the view of the storm, 3. and if possible a foreground with some interest, or perhaps a leading line to add to the image.

As the storm approaches, I discover a spot of the side of the road overlooking some farm land. I position the trip and set up the Nikon D800 camera with the 17-35mm lens. I don’t need polarisers or filters, just the lens hood to protect the front glass from catching any drops of rain…I don’t want any droplet makes on my final images.

Shooting lightning is a little like fishing. The longer you have you line in the water the likely you’ll be to catch something. Sae goes for lightning, the more you have the shutter open the more likely you’ll catch the lightning. I use a few different techniques to time the shutter with the lightning. First, I use the intervalometer, that I didn’t think that was very successful as I couldn’t control the timing. So I changed to a manual technique with the camera in mirror up mode and using my cable shutter to fire the shots when I thought the next lightning was about to strike.

When the light decreased, I change slightly again to a method using blub mode, which allowed me to slow the shutter down to 1 or 2 minutes, which enabled me to capture multiple lightning strikes for a more impressive image.

Read more information about my Landscape Photography at http://www.andrewmarr.com.au

********* PLEASE SUBSCRIBE **********

If you’d like to be notified when I upload my next landscape photography adventure, please subscribe to my YouTube channel |    / @andrew_marr  

**************************************************

Stay up to date with my latest adventures
Follow me on Instagram |   / andrew_marr  
Follow me on Facebook |   / andrewmarrphotographer  
Follow me on Twitter |   / madebyandrew  
Follow me on Ello | https://ello.co/andrew_marr
Follow me on Google+ | https://plus.google.com/u/0/107313405...

I recently stepped away from landscape photography to try street photography, I captured my experience here -    • Street Photography - Urban Compositio...  

If you are interested in following along on one of my landscape trips, I recently came back from Esperance, you can check out my the two videos here:
Part 1 -    • Landscape Photography - Shooting with...  
Part 2 -    • Landscape Photography - Capturing the...  

Check my previous adventures exploring waterfalls at:
Beyonderyup Falls -    • Landscape Photography - An adventure ...  
Lesmurdie Falls -    • Landscape Photography - Experimenting...  
Bells Rapids -    • Landscape Photography - Arriving earl...  
Noble Falls -    • Landscape Photography - Using Lee Lit...  

If you are interested in how I approach post-processing, take a look at the following videos:
Watermans Bay -    • Landscape Photography - Sunset Long E...  
Perth Skyline -    • Landscape Photography - ND Filters Ef...  

Be inspired with other videos I've taken of seascape scenes around Perth:

Burns Beach -    • Landscape Photography  -  Finding an ...  
Burns Beach -    • Landscape Photography - Searching for...  
North Beach -    • Landscape Photography - Sunrise & Sun...  
Burns Beach -    • Landscape Photography - Seascape Suns...  

Check out another series of videos full of tips and tricks that I recorded on location in Cape Naturalist area:

Sugarloaf Rock -    • Landscape Photography - Fighting the ...  
Wyadup -    • Landscape Photography - Timing a seas...  
Margaret River -    • Landscape Photography - When the goin...  

I would love to hear your feedback on the video, if you have any questions or if you found this helpful or entertaining, please let me know in the comments below.

If you think others would enjoy this content, please share the link to this video or any of my others videos.

Thank you for your support! :)