Quote:
Originally Posted by PCH
Hi Greg,
wow! - all those shots are terrifc, but as others have said, the pano is spectacular and the detail in pic 2 with the star trails is also fantastic.
Would you mind sharing your settings for the star trails pics, including how long the shtter was open for?
All the best 
Edit - wow, I just read that you took the pano ( #4 ) from your decking. Jeez, weren't you scared the world was coming to an end or something, - the colouring has a sort of armageddon look to it don't you think? |
Thank you so much for the great feedback Paul
The star trail isn't a single exposure. It was stacked in "Startrails"
http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html It is a combination of thirty 30 second exposures for a total elapsed time of 15 minutes. To get the lightning AND the stars to show up in the individual frames took a lot of messing about with camera settings. Luckily I had such an active and not moving fast storm to play around with. The ISO was 400 and the aperture was 6.3 at 10mm focal length. All storms are different and it depends on how close you are to the lightning and what lens you are using, as to what settings you need. As a rough guide I generally start out at ISO 100-200, aperture around 9 and shutter speed 15-30 seconds, and adjust from there. I just shoot frames continuously. On most storms for every lightning strike I get about 50 blank frames (got to love digital), but on this storm I was getting at lest two strikes each frame
Yeah the storm in the pano was certainly impressive. It had actually passed through at the time of shooting this so I wasn't in fear at all. Just in awe of the beauty of it. The colours are all true to life. They are caused by the setting sun poking through gaps in the clouds behind me.