Marc Benton dot Com

Perseverance

This is a story of practice what you preach. Not long ago I wrote about a missed opportunity when I drove into DC to capture a lightning bolt during a storm and my frustration that followed.  I walked away from the experience knowing that a shot as rare as capturing lightning takes perseverance.

That lesson paid off for me.  On another bored evening I drove into DC to see what I could find.  The weather was overcast but dry, I wasn’t expecting any storms that evening.  While driving past Union Station Plaza I noticed the colored fountain with the Capitol building behind it.  Seemed like an opportunity for a nice shot so I parked and made my way to the park.  As soon as I parked the rain started coming down.  I grabbed my tripod and umbrella and trudged on.

I didn’t expect to stay long, just long enough to get a few shots of the fountain.  After about 10 minutes though I noticed the occasional lightning flashes in the sky.  The camera was then set to longer exposures and trained to an empty portion of the sky where the lightning was most prevalent.  After around forty 10 second exposures I was yet to capture one.  It seemed that everytime it flashed I was in between my exposures.  The rain had increased and was coming down in buckets.  Frustration set in again and I almost packed it up.  My stubborness refused to give in though so I stuck it out.

By then the storm had moved more east and I was now seeing the flashes over the Capitol.  The camera was turned and the after some experimenting decided to go with a 1/6th second exposure.  As lit up as the Capitol is, anything longer was just too much no matter what aperature I used.

My new tactic was to put the camera in continuous mode and hold down the shutter for 10-20 exposures at a time.  I took around 300 of these of course missing the decreasing flashes between shutters.  Here’s what they looked like:

Then…all of a sudden…the sky lit up and made it appear like mid-day.  I’m now glad I went with the quick exposure for this or would have missed this transition.

and there it was, my lightning shot…finally!

Its not the best shot ever (these are straight off the camera) and the Capitol is still blown out but I’m happy with it. I used a Tamron 17-35mm f/2.8-4 wide angle lens for these.  Next time I’d like to use my Canon 28-135 to see if I get better results.

It takes time (this took about 45 minutes) and multiple attempts but that shot you really want will come to you with perseverance.