I spent about 45 minutes outside last night trying to capture a good picture of lightning. I have a Sony Cyber Shot camera and tried out just about all the settings I could think of to try to capture the lightening. I did get some on video, but didn't have much luck with still shots.
When I tried to use the automatic setting the camera refused to take the shot when the strikes would have been best. Is that because it was too much light and the camera was trying to protect itsself? When I tried to shoot without the flash the pictures came out orange or white and grainy.
Yes, I know we should not be outside playing in the lightning, but it stayed far enough to the south of where I was that I never was in any danger.
Does anyone have any tips for me?
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Comments: 12
As for it refusing to take the shot, usually that has to do with it having trouble focusing. Try shooting with something in the foreground for it to focus on and usually the lighting will also be in decent focus.
The camera I use now is just point-and-shoot auto-focus, so I don't have that option. It does have a motion picture setting, so I could mount it on a tripod and start taking a movie. If there was no lightning strike after a minute or so, I'd stop the movie and delete it. Since everything's digital, if you captured a strike, you could extract that frame, and you'd have your picture!
I still use just 35mm film though. I wonder if film asa makes a big difference?