Daylight LIghtning Ideas

[kornhauser]

Haven't been here in a while. I'll work on that!!

I've been taking pictures of lightning at night, now that the June thunderstorms in the North Carolina mountains are bringing the desired strikes!

Took these with my Nikon D70s, f-11, and a 15 second shutter. Velbron tripod. At night...

Does anyone have any suggestions for capturing lightning in the daylight hours? If I can adjust to at least a three (3) to five (5) second exposure, I'd be tickled to death. Thought about using window tinting on a polarizer, but thought I'd run it by the board and see if anyone else has any ideas.

[ghost]

I believe some very powerful neutral density (ND) filters would be the best option optically, but you probably could rig up a similar contraption. If I recall, a polorizer will give you 1 to 2 stops of light. A ND8 would give you up to 3 stops if I recall. and I also think you can stack the filters to get to the 5 second range. good luck!

[Prospero]

You can get a ND110 filter by B+W. That filter will give you 10 stops of light. At ISO200 and f/16, this means you will get a shutterspeed slower than 5 seconds.

This was calculated with the Sunny 16 rule of thumb, and since it is generally not sunny during thunderstorms, I suppose shutterspeeds slower than 15 seconds will be possible with this filter.