As many of the members of PASR, as well as members of our community know, Jennifer Coats (http://www.jennifercoats.com) takes some fantastic, and incredible pictures of storms. I, Rob McKelvy, asked her if we could take photos when a storm came. She said, "Sure." Yesterday, she called me in the early afternoon to say there was going to be a wonderful storm that night, and did I want to come out to her house. I looked around at the sky. Not a cloud was in sight. Not much wind either. Hmmm. I was not sure she knew what she was talking about, but she assured me there would be a storm, and it would hit between 9 and midnight. I went to her house. I took my friend, Stephanie DeFranco (http://stephaniedefranco.com/blog/) with me. (She's a great photographer too. Check out her work.) It was one honking storm! Dust, wind, lightning, but in Dexter, no rain. It was eerie, cold, and exciting. I did not have a clue as to how to take photos of lightning, but Jennifer is a great teacher. Here's what she told me to do.
- Set your camera to manual mode.
- Settings for me: Shutter speed: 25 seconds, aperture: f/6.3, ISO: 400
- Focus on some object in the distance. We focused on a few lights on the horizon.
- Turn your auto focus on your lens off, and switch to manual focus.
- Press the shutter button, and hope for some great shots.
I have no clue how to edit lightning photos. One thing I find interesting is that the sky is anywhere from yellow, pink to blue. I have no clue what my white balance was, or if that may have affected the color. I took all my photos in JPEG, since I did not want to eat up my memory card. I learned a ton, had a great time, and am very thankful that Jennifer opened her home, and knowledge to me. Here are my photos.
Now I cannot wait until the next storm happens. I was so glad to see that Roswell got some rain.
