A few days ago, I created a blog post that talked about a way where you can guarantee to capture every lightning strike, every time. It is a little bit convoluted, however: You have to use two different cameras, you have to create a special cable, and you have to hack the software on your camera.
After that post, I got a load of e-mail and some rather well-argued comments on my blog post over on Pixiq, explaining that lightning doesn’t quite work the way I assumed: Instead of a single, super short flash (like you might expect from a flashgun – whose light flashes can be as short as 0.05 milliseconds – or 50 µs, if you prefer), lightning is, in fact, a much slower process.
Wikipedia, for example, has a lightning sequence photograph that covers 0.32 seconds – that’s a whopping 320 milliseconds.
It turns out that there’s another device out there that relies on the fact that lightning isn’t in fact, fast as lightning. The Lightning Trigger guys explain that “Depending on the storm, lightning flashes can last for several hundred milliseconds and contain dozens of strokes each occurring approximately 40 milliseconds apart”. They also have a rather useful graphic explaining how lightning works, and the same page lists the shutter lag for a whole load of different cameras. Useful! You can buy the Lightning Trigger with connection cable for $380 from the LightningTrigger.com site.
So, how can you use the Triggertrap to capture lightning?
Since the Triggertrap is perfectly happy to react in about 2 milliseconds, and a camera typically has a shutter lag of about 50 milliseconds, that means that we have plenty of time to capture a load more lightning.
You simply set your Triggertrap to Ambient Light mode (‘Light’), and point the side of the Triggertrap towards the lightning storm. When lightning blasts off, the following happens:
Timeline of photographing Lightning with an unmodified Triggertrap device
So, in other words: The answer to the perennial question as to whether you can use the Triggertrap to take photos of lightning is:
- Yes, without modification, as shown on this page
- Yes, with modification, which guarantees that you capture every single lightning strike.
Enjoy!
Photo Credit: Electrical Storm over Brisbane (cc) Richard Fisher
I guess yet another way of shooting lightnings could be using triggertraps sound trigger.
Hook that to a radio and turn from the FM to AM and you can “hear” every lightning strike in the area as noise immediately as they strike. Only downside is that it would trigger from some very distant strikes as well, although i think you could fine tune it by setting the threshold up because the closer the strike, the louder the noise.
I guess yet another way of shooting lightnings could be using triggertraps sound trigger.
Hook that to a radio and turn from the FM to AM and you can “hear” every lightning strike in the area as noise immediately as they strike. Only downside is that it would trigger from some very distant strikes as well, although i think you could fine tune it by setting the threshold up because the closer the strike, the louder the noise.
I always thought the way lighting was photographed involved setting a camera into burst mode during the storm so the strike itself is sure to be captured.
I thought that too, to be honest… Until I tried it :)
I have to admit I’ve never tried it, so my method wouldn’t work! We didn’t even have lightning around here recently! :)
I always thought the way lighting was photographed involved setting a camera into burst mode during the storm so the strike itself is sure to be captured.
I thought that too, to be honest… Until I tried it :)
I have to admit I’ve never tried it, so my method wouldn’t work! We didn’t even have lightning around here recently! :)
What progress has been made on the “lighting capture” code for 2 cameras.