If you were in the Tri-state area then last night you experienced a pretty wild lightning storm. As the storm moves in I normally scramble for my wide angle lens point it out the window and shoot away. I am still tweaking my settings, but I feel I am getting closer. The official lightning trigger that is out there costs a small fortune although there is an ebay option out there for half that price. I prefer free whenever possible. All I do is set my camera for f/10 at a low ISO and lock in my cable release in any continuous mode., make sure your lens is set to infinity, you are on a solid tripod and your ready to go.  As for the urban light pollution? Well that’s a tad unavoidable.

This was shot over the opposing house. Working around a roof over hand and a house only so far away is difficult. It really comes down to luck hoping the bolt strikes in font of the clouds and in your frame.

I gravitated toward this view as I though it was a tad more natural with a bit of tree blur.

Not too much magic to it, but it sure is fun if your into burning some pixels. It stinks waiting to see what you got, but that can be part of the excitement… or disappointment depending on what you got, haha. Do keep in mind that each Nikon camera has a continuious single burst limit rate. In the case of the D300 if is 100 frames. So you can check on it from time to time. Please do exercise caution when doing this. Lightning can KILL. Your gear is or has metal in it and many tripods do as well. So do this at your own risk, be safe and have fun!