A quick note: I’m visiting family in France, so my Daily Dose is spare this week and sporadic through mid-August. Happy summer to you!
Happy photo Friday, DMV! It’s July 31.
As the big storm rolled into the DMV Tuesday evening, I tried my hand at capturing a photo of lightning on my iPhone camera.
Just before the wind picked up, cicadas were buzzing. Then the sky darkened, and stronger gusts whipped up the trees. I went out onto my front doorstep to take photos, all the while wondering if it was unwise to leave my safe shelter and watch lightning outside.
I held up my phone and quickly realized that my finger is much too slow to catch a flash of lightning. So I opted for video, from which I grabbed this still image:
(Alisa Tang)
It was my first try — a modest bolt, but I’m happy with the result. I caught it!
I decided to reach out to Capital Weather’s Kevin Ambrose, who has photographed lightning for 22 years and has been published in magazines, newspapers and a weather textbook.
He described his setup: “At night, I use a tripod with timed exposures on the camera using the camera's manual mode -- f/5-f/10, ISO 50-200, and 8-10 second exposures. When lightning strikes, the camera captures the flash. During the day, I use a tripod with a lightning trigger attached to the camera, or I shoot 8K video and take a frame from the video.”
(Kevin Ambrose)
I asked him for tips for someone like me, equipped with a phone camera. He said he tried using a phone once to photograph lightning, using video to capture stills: “The resolution was poor, but it was OK for social media.”
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