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This is exactly why I love giving sky photography a great deal of persistance. I am constantly amazed at what it does when you give it a chance. After it is over I'm laughing alot and saying how I can't believe that happened like that--well alot of the time anyway. It's not that fun to sit somewhere or drive somewhere far when you have no guarantee of what you'll see. When it starts off slow one will start thinking of cutting their loses and giving up on things. I don't always have persistance, but after missing things by not having it, I've grown paranoid of not having alot of it. So, the following is nothing all that crazy I don't think. At the same time it isn't terrible. I was sitting at home when I notice a severe warning on the tube. It was down south on the KS/NE border. It got me to look at the radar and I see storms in nw IA and another small cell in ne NE. I give them a bit to intensify and it really wasn't happening. It was close enough to home that it was a no-brainer whether I should go look at it or not. I grabbed my camera and thought I'd go to my parent's and use their roof or yard since it kind of overlooks the city. I didn't want to wake them up if it wasn't worth it, so I drive by and up the hill further to see if I could see the storm. I then see it pop off a couple flashes and stop. Not sure what to do, as it wasn't clear how active it was, I drive north of town to the flat area west of the Missouri River. I wasn't seeing a whole hell of a lot of anything flashing anywhere. I get to a spot a couple miles north of town and turn around. The whole time I'm not seeing jack from the area I saw the flashes. This is how small and inactive the storm was. So I drive back into town and head home. While heading back I see a very distant, pure red bolt on the horizon. I'm not sure I can think of a time where a bolt appeared that red to the eye. Earlier I watched an amazing sunset with a very red disc near the horizon as it set. When there is a bunch of moisture in the air and it is hot you'll often see these very red suns as they near the horizon. They are cool enough that I'm just about ready to buy a Canon 400mm L(non-IS!). Since that bolt was way east and it was still all extremely infrequent I continue home. The second I get out of my car to walk into my appartment I see this tower all lit up right infront of me! It wasn't all that far north of town. How I missed it I have no idea. I get back in my car and drive to the east side of town. I keep my eye on it the whole way to the river. I park along the river and it is gone from site completely. It was pretty cloudy here all day and there was a ton of moisture in the air. It was actually half-foggy just off the surface and these clouds would block off the sky. Then a bit later you can see stars perfectly fine--back and forth. I sit there and make a couple attempts at a few flashes east of the river. They quickly stopped. This was getting rather frustrating and I knew it would be with such weak storms(not one was severe this whole night). I then notice something much more active(that is relative!) back where my storm was supposed to be this whole time(on radar) . The problem was it was just west of this thick area of trees and was completely blocked. The area I'm talking about is to the left of the tree on the left side of the first image below. As much messing around as I've already done over this I decided I might as well wait it out--and wait I did. It took forever for this area to move to the right of the trees. Guess what happens as it is doing so? You guessed it, it just about stops completely. I was beyond annoyed now after messing around with this for so long. So, I sit there and decide to just get what I can get out of it, and that wasn't much for the early parts of its crossing of the river.
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This was my first bolt of the night, an hour after starting this local adventure. This actually went on for 3 full hours, 1 hour till now and a couple hours on from here. This is at 11:08. For an idea of how inactive this is now and how slow the area is moving, the following image was shot at 11:59. For that 50 minutes I manage 3 whole frames with bolts, and I'm using bulb with a quick camera, lol. This is some poor thunderstorm activity to be trying to shoot lightning! I had plenty of time to get both my 50mm F/1.8 and 17-40L F/4 correctly focused at infinity, lol. So for the first 2 hours of this we've added up some serious persistance. With the sky I can safely say it will pay off the greater majority of the time.
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Finally this storm decides to become active again! It couldn't have done it at a better time. Where I'm shooting from is not all that ideal. I was too chicken to go setup on the dock...next time though. There are some bushes on the right side of the image below the frame. They were limiting how much I could angle the shot down and it was rather annoying. I could include enough of the river to keep me happy though, so I just sat there and shot from the car. I think it is the fact it is summer and near town that makes it creepy. When it is -10 out it's not as creepy since I know anyone hanging out down there will be too cold to do much.
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Some of the bolts wanted to be this less-red color. Most though wanted to be extremely red. I'm using my 50mm F1.8 on all of these except the last one. I'm actually using the lens at F/1.8 AND I'm ISO'd up on almost all of them. These first 3 images are the only ones on here at ISO 100.
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This image and the next one are at ISO 400, F/1.8.
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Many of these bolts were more embedded in rain and haze than they seem, which is why the higher ISOs were working.
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All but one of the rest are at ISO 800, F/1.8.
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I don't think the red lightning thing was exagerated by the high ISO since this one was ISO 800 and is the more orange coloring. Several of the red ones I actually had to desature the file. I think the red is just where it is at in regards to the precip, though I'm not sure(I'm pretty new to the whole lightning thing...or at least certainly not hardcore with it yet).
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As it was crossing, the sky cleared out around the backsheared anvil(backshear doesn't mean a whole lot when there's no flow up there). It was really neat looking as it did this. You could see some thicker, white, precip right up there under the anvil, tucked up against where the updraft must have been. The stars and sky were a lot clearer than they look in these, yet not super clear like you get in some really "cold" skies.
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ISO 1600, F/1.8 and only a 2 second shutter. Many of these files have had noise removal done to them via Neat Image.
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I tossed the wide angle back on for a quick couple shots.
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Persistance is the key to chasing and photographing the sky. I could have went home and stayed home several times but I didn't. It's almost like it was just waiting to pay someone willing to keep watching. For an hour before it got right over the river it wasn't doing jack. Then it is in position and puts on its show...for whoever is left to watch. I guess this is what makes chasing the sky so attractive...it is always changing, so it sort of has to put on shows...whether you are still around or not.
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