Lightning, Welch Point, Bridgestone Firestone Centennial Wilderness WMA, White County, Tennessee

There we were; the Curtii (Tim and Janice Curtis) racing up the mountain in advance of a lightning storm. The storm was well behind us, and it was our goal to setup at Welch Point and capture a lightning photo.

As we raced to the point, far away on the horizon flashes of light and rumbles of thunder beckoned us forward. Knowing that the storm was well away from us was a comforting thought as I setup my large metal tripod on one of the highest locations in the region and attached what is probably my most valuable possession (my camera) to it.

I have no special technique for shooting lightning. I go full manual and I crank the ISO up to 400, and set the shutter for 30 seconds. I use Magic Lantern to set an intervalometer for the camera so that the shutter remains open to catch whatever happens for about 11 out of every 12 seconds overall.

Not knowing where in the sky the lightning will occur, I opted to use my 8mm Rokinon fisheye lens to capture the widest field of view for wherever the action happened. The disadvantage to using this lens is that it makes things far off appear smaller. The advantage is that if things happen nearby, they look bigger. I figured that an hour or two of the strorm approaching should give me a few good shots.

I had my camera ready to roll pretty quickly as I had made most of my adjustments while Tim was driving us there. My camera atop the tripod, I decided that standing a safe distance from the overlook would be a good idea, as the storm now appeared to be on top of us. Janice followed me back from the overlook and we left Tim standing there as he adjusted his camera settings.

BOOM. Lightning cracked across the whole sky and I was pretty sure that myself and my camera had been hit since a startled Janice grabbed a hold of me and clinched tightly. I may have screamed just a bit in that moment, and that's OK, I was terrified.

In actuality I had gotten the above photo. A nearly perfect framing of the landscape illuminated by a powerful cloud-to-cloud lightning bolt. This was the fourth photo I had taken according to my intervalometer.

I quickly reviewed the photo, decided it was THE shot, and collected my gear to hide in Tim's Jeep. Tim remained at the overlook for a few more minutes, and he unfortunately missed this particular bolt (a great injustice the universe inflicted upon him).

Used in the blog post My Top Ten Favorite Photos from White County, Tennessee and Lightning Photographed from around White County, Tennessee.

Taken in: United States / Tennessee / Bethesda (show map)

Taken on: June 26, 2015

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Sets appears in: • 2015/06/23 - Lightning Storm • Best Of more » • Ego • Geology • Welch Point « less

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Camera: Canon EOS M, 30 sec, ISO 400 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS M
Exposure Time:	30
ISO:	400
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Manual
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows
Show full info

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