How to Photograph Lightning

Photos and techniques to use to capture lightning photos

Jul 30, 2023

I had the humbling experience this week of trying to learn a new skill. My gravel bike wasn’t shifting correctly, and it was throwing the chain now and then. The pandemic closed the local bike shop, so it was either a drive down to Sawtooth Outfitters in Tofte to drop off the bike during their busy season or pull out the bike repair book and watch YouTube videos so that I didn’t have to interrupt my training schedule.

After three hours, I finally got the front derailleur to shift correctly(ish) and found that one of my chain links was kinked. So, I had to fix that, too! Luckily, I knew how to do that (I’ll have to replace the chain soon). Then it was onto the rear derailleur. That went smoother, but it still isn’t shifting perfectly. Then I went down the rabbit hole of cleaning the chain and all the drivetrain, adjusting the seat height to lower the stress on my lower calf muscles, cleaning sticker gunk from some new bars I recently put on the bike…

And on and on.

Why did I relate this story? Because I remember it was a lot like that when I was learning to photograph lightning. Learning new skills is challenging and sometimes frustrating without hands-on guidance of an expert standing there helping you out.

This triple bolt strike over the Grand Marais lighthouse was my first real success at capturing lightning. I took the shot in 2006.

When learning on your own, you first research the topic on the internet or books, then you mess around with the camera to get it set correctly, then you wait for a storm, and then you might get a shot or maybe not. If you have a little success, then it snowballs. You want to learn more about making it better.

And you go down the rabbit hole! Soon you are a proud owner of a lightning trigger and you are chasing tornados.

While I’ve been in enough tornados to not have the desire to chase them, I have chased thunderstorms. I’ve gotten a few good shots. It’s not something that I’m dedicated to doing, but I’m opportunistic about it. If there’s going to be an easy opportunity to maybe get some lightning, I’ll probably give it a go.

Before I get into the settings and techniques that I use, I do want to mention safety. Thunderstorms are dangerous. NOAA says, “In fact, ‘bolts from the blue’ can strike as far as 25 miles out from the parent thunderstorm. That's why it's important to seek shelter at the first indication of a thunderstorm and stay there until 30 minutes after the last clap of thunder.” You should read this page from NOAA about lightning safety.

Assuming you’re safe and able to safely photograph the storm, you’ll want to ideally be away from rain — it washes out the photos — and you’ll want to be able to point your camera towards a thunderhead that is producing lightning. Because the lightning will likely be far away, you’ll want to use a telephoto lens.

A composite of two strikes. I took these two shots of the same composition, but they occurred in two seperate frames. It was easy to combine them. I was shooting with a telephoto lens.

The best time to shoot the lightning is at night. During the day, you can get lightning shots but it’ll look less dramatic.

During the day, it’s good to add a strong foreground to the shot because unless the storm is really dark, the lightning will be dim. Here’s a slot canyon leads the eyes out towards Lake Superior and a distant lightning strike. I used a Singh-Ray 10-stop Mor-slo filter (save 10% with the code thathansel) to get a long exposure of 4 seconds at midday. Then I shot continuously until I got the shot. Now, I’d use a lightning trigger instead and save the frames.

When you are just starting out, you need to realize that lightning is bright. It often lights up an area when it strikes and if you are using high ISO and wide open shutter, it’ll likely blow everything out.

I lost an amazing shot of a lightning bolt hitting the top of Devils Tower because I had my settings set with too high of an ISO. The next and final bolts weren’t nearly as cool.

These small lightning bolts above Devils Tower weren’t a prize for missing the amazing bolt that appeared to strike the tower.

Because lightning is so bright, it can also light up objects. That’s what happened when I was shooting the Milky Way over Devils Tower. A bolt hit somewhere behind me and the entire tower was illuminated with light. That made for an unique Milky Way image.

Devils Tower is lit up by a lightning bolt while the Milky Way is overhead. I’ve never seen a similar photo.

For settings at night, my starting point is ISO 400, f/8 and bulb. I plug in a shutter release cord. Then I push the button on the shutter release cord. I hold it which keeps the shutter open. Then I count to 30 seconds. If a bolt doesn’t happen by 30 seconds, I’ll start a new shot and repeat. If a bolt happens in front of the lens, I’ll stop the exposure and immediately start a new one.

After your first lightning bolt, check your exposure. If it’s too bright, reduce your ISO and maybe go to f/11. If it’s too dark, then increase your ISO and maybe go to f/5.6. There’s no specific formula for how much to reduce or brighten by. It’s a learning task. It’s helpful to have someone experience with you to help you learn the settings. You’ll need another bolt to hit to check exposure again.

Once you get your exposure right, you start shooting again and you don’t stop. If you stop you may miss a bolt.

As the Gambler says, never count your money while sitting at the table.

Same with lightning. I’ve missed shots because I wanted to look to see if I captured a bolt. I tried to count my money while sitting at the table. Just remember that there’s time enough for counting when the thunderstorm is done.

These lightning bolts were all out of one cell that kept striking in a similar location. I never stopped shooting to count my lightning until the thunderstorm was done. Had I, I may have missed one or more of these shots.

The bulb thing can be tiring. If the storm isn’t super active, you can save yourself some work by setting the camera to continuously shoot 30 second exposures and then cross your fingers that the sky doesn’t blow out if you get multiple strikes in the same exposure. The easy way to do this is turn on a continuous frame rate, and then set the shutter speed to 30 seconds. Plug in a shutter release cord, press the button, and lock the button on the cord. Until you unlock, the camera will shoot photos.

That’s what I did to get this shot of Split Rock Lighthouse with lightning.

I shot continuous 30 second exposures until I got this shot of lightning appearing to hit the point where Split Rock lighthouse sits. It happened near the end of the storm.

Keep in mind that these storms are constantly moving and sometimes they move quickly. The next shot demonstrates this. This is a two-image panoramic shot. The two images were taken four minutes apart. The storm cell that’s producing the lightning is the exact same cell. It just moved from the left to the right between to two shots.

This panoramic shot of lightning over a lake cabin shows a thunderstorm cell producing lighting in two different spots, but it’s the same cell that just moved between the images of the pano.

Sometimes, you are just going to strike out. You won’t get a single shot of lightning. Other times, you may just get the flash of a bright light but no actual bolts. Those shots can be cool, too.

In this shot of dark storm clouds over a lily-filled river, the lightning was hidden from view. The strikes caused the end of the river to go white with light. It looked cool to me.

The key to lightning photography is that to get good shots, you need to stay safe and shoot often. It’s like learning any new skill; after you do it a few times you get better and better and better.

Until next time

I hope you enjoyed this issue about lightning photography. A few of my night photography workshops for 2024 still have openings. If you’re interested in speeding up the learning process, a workshop can help.

I’ll see you again in two weeks.