Quick tips to shoot LIGHTNING

 

Have you ever try to shoot LIGHTENING ever or ever planned? I think shooting lightning hardly matter for most people. Shooting lightning is one of the difficult genres in photography. It requires lots of pre-planning & patience to shoot because you have a second to shoot this speedy lightning. The PRO photographer takes lots of pain to shoot this lightning because the location, the weather is the strong enemy for you to capture lightning sometimes it is a dangerous affair if you are shooting miles and miles away from you home location and spending a hell lot of money to capture the lightning.

We all must remember that according to NASA.GOV, the light generated from a lightning strike travels at a constant 186,000/second. And you have to get ready and well equipped to capture that incredible speed of beautiful lightning. 

Let's discuss the few important points to shoot LIGHTNING and must follow all the instruction if you are planning to shoot in the near future. 

Location - Must find the location where lightning happens frequently and you get a second chance to shoot if you miss the shot. Do Google and hunt for the safest location. The location must be verified by other photographer or google itself. please never waste your time to stay at a single place where lightning rarely and never happens 

Avoid going alone - Must carry companion, assistant, friend etc to avoid any unforeseen situation.  Must share your location with your family while going out to shoot. These locations are very far away from the public places and surrounded by Jungle, Mountain etc. Please take the best care of you always. 

Tripod & Remote - Must carry a strong and steady tripod along with the remote control. Set your camera on the tripod and recheck that camera do not shake at all because we all know that camera can shake our career too (haha). Take test shot with the remote control to confirm that all is fixed perfectly. 

Slow shutter Speed- Must shoot on slow shutter speed to capture the speedy lightning. Allow your camera to record all the colour lightning through the slow shutter speed sometimes it takes longer time to capture so please bear with it patiently. 

Never use the FLASH- Using flash can invite lightning to fire your camera, lens and sometimes this can bring a hazardous accident to you also and can burn photographer too. Please avoid flash completely even lock your pop up flash. 

Never ever stand under the trees - Never ever finalize your shooting place under or near the trees, Keep this thing in your mind and never stand near or under the trees because of Lightning fires the trees. I hope you all know this.

Precaution- Must carry all the possible precautions like torch Light, raincoat, camera rain cover, extra batteries, extra memory cards and your phone must charge 100% to call anyone in case of any emergency. 

Conclusion- Must visit to the available nearest location to shoot, never plan for any long-distance location in the beginning. You must get experience by visiting the nearest location to shoot, observe all the requirement, obstacles, precautions etc. Once you are through all the shoot requirement then must plan to visit long-distance or famous location to shoot LIGHTNING. 

Keep Experimenting and Have wonderful and happy photography life to all of you. 

Photographer and Blogger Prasenjeet Gautam (www.prasenjeetgautam.com) has captured the above-posted image of Lightning. INDIA