Western Railroad Discussion > A Frustrating Afternoon East Of Denver

I spent the last two afternoons attempting to photograph lightning. We've had some impressive storms move through the Denver area with lots of rain and hail. I had good results shooting lightning photos in the dark (see https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,5677175). Trying to shoot in daylight presented some problems with exposures. I didn't get any usable shots but while watching the weather pass  on the county line east of Denver between Adams and Weld Counties, this coal load came by me at the west switch of Tonville siding. He was running under restricted speed due to weather warnings stretching from eastern Weld County all the way to Denver, about 70 miles. At one point, the line of thunderstorms stretched from Denver to Cheyenne,,,, A little over 100 miles.

Thanks for looking!

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

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B&H Photo sells numerous lightening triggers. They work well. Some also can trigger on thunder claps.  I'm unsure, but it may be possible to rent one to try it out.

Interesting shot James, and as my father was fond of saying, "You pays your money and your takes your chances." Take heart, there will be more storms to play with.
—Mac



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/23 14:34 by MacBeau.

A friend of mine likes to photograph daytime lightning.  He's used several different triggers over the years.  This is the one that he says works the best:  https://lightningtrigger.com/ .  And it is sold by an outfit right in the OP's state of Colorado.  I can't vouch for it, but I've seen my friend's daytime lightning photos taken using it.  They are phenomenal.  Yes,it is expensive--part of the reason that I don't have one.

Thanks for all of the thoughts guys! I have a Lightning Trigger I bought several years ago. As evidenced by my post a couple of weeks ago it worked well at night. The major malfunction seems to be the buffoon operating the camer trying to get the exposure right. In my next outing I'm going to try a neutral density filter to see if the helps. Reports to follow....

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

My best efforts at getting lightning shots have involved using a remote timer linked to my digital SLR, programmed to take repeated 10 second exposures.  Using a small lens aperture, f/16 or higher, and a low ISO, I've bagged a lot of lightning over the years.  You get a lot of images with no lightning, and have to comb through the whole collected lot to find the ones that have caught a bolt or two, so the process is a bit laborious.  But it works for me.  But this only works at night.  During the day, you could use a very dense Neutral Density Filter.  I've not tried that, but might sometime!
 

Kit Courter
Menefee, CA
LunarLight Photography



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/23 19:32 by CimaScrambler.