Easy flashing Photography

Great shot of a lightning storm near The Hague in The Netherlands

This picture was not hard to make. Not at all!

The only thing was… it was at one o’clock at an October night in 2014. I was vast asleep at that time when suddenly I was awaken due to a severe thunderstorm. With no time to think, I grabbed my gear and set up to photograph the natural phenomena. I used my tripod and the remote trigger to shoot a picture with an exposure time of 10 seconds. Due to the fact that I live in an apartment building in The Hague on the 6th floor, I was lucky to shoot from my bedroom window. Consequently, I did not have to go outside to take this picture.

The lightning show was fantastic! Without thinking, I used my 50 mm lens, which is my favorite at the time, and set the ISO on 100. I was using an exposure time of 10 seconds, so the ISO could be so low in the dark surroundings. I wanted the 10 seconds because that gave me a good chance of actually capturing some lightning in the 50 mm framed area. With those settings I tried finding a matching F-number and that appeared to be 5. With these settings, you could see the trees in front, lighted by the artificial lights next to it and the night sky was also visible.

Then I used my remote trigger and made shot after shot automatically, each with the exposure of 10 seconds. I just had to wait and hope that the lightning would be nicely framed! Post processing there was not much to do about the picture any more; it was already a great impulsive photo!

Camera settings:

Location