Here’s an update

I haven’t been taking photos lately or doing anything that needs an update. So here’s one since I had a try at taking photos of lightning last night, so here you go Malfrinko I used a black card to allow for longer exposures without getting it overexposed. Still, it’s not very easy to get a well-exposed image with bulb mode because there’s no metering available. It’s really quite like a trial-and-error situation. Gauge your exposure wrongly and your photo could turn out like this:

Underexposed. There’s a vaguely noticeable lightning streak on the right.

Overexposed. Way overexposed. I don’t know why those spots showed up. Maybe rain droplets because this was a very long exposure, but highly unlikely.

A few things to keep in mind when doing this:

• Try it indoors. You probably won’t enjoy it outdoors and there’s a chance the camera will get wet. Yes, I’ve tried it in both situations.
• Use bulb mode, because this normally requires more than 30 seconds.
• A black card works well to cover your camera’s lens to extend the exposure time without overexposing it. Covering your lens with it effectively means not exposing your sensor.
• Tripod, for goodness sake.
• Avoid a very, very long exposure. It’ll only yield a lot of motion blur.
• Because it’s a trial-and-error thing, just keep shooting. You’ll definitely get a few good ones out of rotten apples.
• Keep in mind variables when a lightning strikes. Expose according to the scene when there’s no lightning and it’ll be ruined once it comes. Try an exposure that’s biased towards the lightning strike, because it’s your main subject.
• Custom white balance. Tungsten won’t do good.

One you’ve got it, you’ll get photos similar to these.

The first ‘usable’ photo.

A 140 sec exposure will have motion blur.

My favourite of the bunch.

I used the 400D and 24-105mm f/4 IS. I find that turning the IS off on this lens is necessary if it’s on a tripod. Otherwise, it just keeps working and makes your photo look shaky.

I think I’ll try stargazing and taking photos of galaxies next. It’s really possible, just use a long exposure on a fast lens (something like f/2.8) and high ISO sensitivity.