Sunday, September 22, 2013

Captured Lightning - A first experience


Couple of days ago, when I was back to home late in the evening, it was cloudy and thunderbolt was there with mild drizzle of rain.
I was awaiting for such a moment for so long ever since I got the new camera FujiFilm F770EXR. This camera has the option to set the shutter delay to 8 seconds. Its just a basic digital camera (Point & Shoot).
Capturing lightning does have a lot of challenges to be overcome. I do not have the comfort of sitting inside closed room and capture the sky. So, should move out to the open terrace. Being a rainy time, I still have to safeguard my camera against any water on it with an umbrella. With all these things taken care, I do not have a tripod to place this camera.
So, I went to open terrace with a plastic stool, a chair, an umbrella. After I set the camera, I realized that, the camera can't be placed with its lens facing upwards. So, I placed my cell phone, then placed the camera at an angle to face it upwards on the stool. Since the stool is smooth, the camera slides to a side and gives me puzzling moments. Now, I removed my shirt, put it on the stool so that the camera rigidly sits on the stool with the shirt providing a little grip.
I sat on the chair, placed the umbrella above and set the camera delay to 8 seconds. Ensured that the camera is pointing to the sky and at the most angle the extent possible for me.
The rain has settled down and the lightning too had come down in its ferocity. Though its safer moment for me to operate on the open terrace, the situation gave me little probability to get the lightning on record. It was many clicks that had went by and during one such click of 8 seconds and when the exposure was going to close, the lightning came and went off during the last may be 3 seconds.
Alas, the experience of having captured the lightning was quite awesome. A first experience for me.
Having got the experience of doing this capture, I am sure of getting a better result next time.

Camera : FujiFilm F770EXR (Point & Shoot)
Shutter : 8 seconds

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