Intensity - Arizona Monsoon Lightning

(click to see this even more intensely)

There is almost nothing about this capture that was done correctly.

First off, you are looking at a crop of the upper-left third of the original RAW file. Meaning, I didn’t aim too well. This was my first time using the new (old) 70-210mm and this was shot at a focal length of 205mm…so I ended up being a bit closer than I wanted, plus I totally misjudged what I was seeing in the viewfinder, so I was too far down-right.

Secondly…and I’m not sure where the mistake happened, but this was shot at ISO 400. Either I had been using ISO 400 before on some less intense strikes elsewhere and forgot to change it, OR I figured shooting lightning from so far away might need me to boost the ISO up to capture it better.

Either way, the reason the strike is so completely thick and blown out is because I should have been down around 100-200.

All that being said, I LOVE the way this turned out! All summer one of my goals has been to somehow find elevated ground to capture scenes where you can actually SEE the strike land instead of it just being off on the horizon somewhere. I mean, there is something a lot more scary about seeing the exact spot it hits. Maybe you wish you could just zoom in and see if it was some cactus that got wiped off the face of the planet.

My buddy Scott Wood and I were talking the other night out on Bush Highway about how much lightning we’ve captured this summer. Been epic so far. After a subpar year last season, I hope this doesn’t mean next year will be a downward curve again.

(canon 5d mark ii, canon 70-210mm 4.0, 205mm, f/5.6, iso 400, 30 sec)

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